TRIE 


.«.:  ■•'!-• 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL   MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


iTY  of  CAUt'JKNl* 
AT 
LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


ff- 


JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE 


JANUS 


IN 


MODERN     LIFE 


BY 

W.     M.     FLINDERS     PETRIE 

D.C.L.,   LL.D.,  F.R.S.,   F.B.A.,   &c. 


Fools   only  leant   by    their  own  experience. 
Wise  men  learn  by  the  experience  of  others. 


,  ....  ... 


* 


•     >       »       ■  ■  4 


LONDON  : 

ARCHIBALD   CONSTABLE   &   CO.    LTD. 

io   ORANGE    STREET,    LEICESTER   SQUARE    VV.C. 

1907. 


"  There  are  two  roads  to  reformation  for  mankind — one 
through  misfortunes  of  their  own,  the  other  through  those 
of  others  ;  the  former  is  the  more  unmistakable,  the  latter 
the  less  painful.  .  .  .  For  it  is  history,  and  history  alone, 
which,  without  involving  us  in  actual  danger,  will  mature 
our  judgment,  and  prepare  us  to  take  right  views,  whatever 
may  be  the  crisis  or  the  posture  of  affairs." 

Polybius. 


•  »  *  ,        •        « a 


.  •  •  • 


-a 


U^3 
J 


■P- 


PREFACE. 


These  papers  essay  an  understanding  of  some  of 
the  various  principles  which  underlie  the  course  of 
political  movements  in  the  present  age.  There  is  no 
attempt  at  introducing  any  considerations  which  are 
not  familiar  to  every  intelligent  person,  nor  any 
comparisons  with  other  instances  which  are  not 
already  well  known  in  history.  Why  considerations 
which  seem  so  obvious  when  stated,  should  yet  not 
be  familiar,  may  perhaps  be  due  to  the  estrangement 
between  science  and  corporate  life,  which  is  an 
unhappy  feature  of  a  time  of  transition  both  in  educa- 
'    tion  and  in  motives. 

The  point  of  view  here  is  that  of  public  and 
!  general  conditions  and  not  of  private  variations  of 
beliefs.  Such  moral  factors,  though  all  important  to 
the  individual,  are  not  so  much  the  subject  of  the 
direct  physical  causes  and  effects  which  are  here  con- 
sidered. Similarly  the  beneficial  result  of  private 
benevolence  is  not  added  to  these  considerations, 
because  it  is  largely  outside  of  the  effects  of  conduct, 
and  finds  its  good  in  amending  or  neutralising  the 
evil  consequences  of  various  actions.     It  will  always 


vi  PREFACE. 

have  its  scope,  but  in  opposition  to,  rather  than  in 
concert  with,  the  direct  effects  which  we  are  here  to 
consider. 

Too  often  the  objections  to  various  new  views  are 
based  upon  some  sentiment  of  one  party,  rather  than 
upon  the  reason  which  is  common  to  all  parties. 
Here,  on  the  contrary,  the  aim  is  to  consider  the 
natural  consequences  of  various  actions,  apart  from 
personal  opinion,  and  therefore  on  a  common  ground 
which  all  readers  can  equally  accept. 

The  position  of  a  partisan  or  an  advocate  has  been 
avoided  so  far  as  possible.  No  doubt  to  many  of  the 
statements  and  deductions  here,  one  party  or  another 
would  cry,  Anathema.  As  a  whole  the  results  are  more 
in  accord  with  Individualism  than  with  Collectivism  ; 
but  an  attempt  is  made  to  trace  what  are  the  limits 
of  a  Collectivism  that  may  not  involve  deleterious 
consequences.  It  may  seem  a  fault  to  many  minds 
that  no  cut  and  dried  definite  system  or  course  of 
action  is  advocated  ;  many  people  prefer  a  medicine 
which  is  guaranteed  to  relieve  all  their  complaints, 
instead  of  a  physiological  research  on  the  obscure 
causes  of  their  troubles.  But,  if  we  are  to  advance, 
we  must  study  the  diseases  of  bodies  politic  with  the 
same  disinterestedness,  and  somewhat  of  the  same 
unfeeling  temper,  as  that  of  the  physiologist  in 
dealing  with  "  animated  nature."  Such  a  line  of 
study  will  be  useless  to  the  politician,  so  long  as  he 
is  an  opportunist  or  a  placeman  ;  and  useless  to  the 


PREFACE.  vii 

socialist,  so  long  as  he  refuses  to  learn  by  the 
experience  of  others. 

The  present  time  seems  to  most  people  so  infinitely 
more  important  to  them  than  the  past  or  future, 
that  they  are  impatient  at  the  introduction  of  com- 
parisons which  seem  to  reflect  upon  their  immediate 
judgment,  or  of  anticipations  which  would  check 
their  present  gratification.  They  forget  that  it  is 
only  a  fiction  to  speak  of  the  present,  an  infinitely 
thin  division  between  what  has  been  and  that  which 
will  be.  Every  step  of  the  past  has  been  a  present, 
living,  urgent,  imperative,  to  the  whole  world ;  and 
every  such  present  has  been  entirely  conditioned 
by  its  past,  just  as  the  future  to  us  is  conditioned 
by  our  present.  If  any  race  now  cares  to  learn 
somewhat  from  its  own  past,  and  that  of  others, 
it  may  benefit  its  own  future  ;  if  it  prefers  a  blind 
selfishness,  a  better  race  will  be  welcomed  to  its 
place. 

Janus,  who  looked  to  the  past  and  to  the  future, 
was  the  god  whose  temple  stood  always  open  during 
war,  that  he  might  bring  peace  upon  earth.  And  in 
our  day  it  is  only  the  view  of  the  past  and  the 
future  which  can  warn  us  of  evils  to  come,  and 
save  us  from  violence  and  confusion. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Preface    v 


CHAPTER  I. 

CHARACTER,   THE  BASIS   OF   SOCIETY. 

Production  of  character  the  most  important  object,  p.  i.  The 
known  conditions  of  physical  variation,  p.  2.  Mental  equiva- 
lents of  physical  variation  in  (i)  benefits  of  ability,  p.  4  ;  (2) 
Inheritance,  p.  4  ;  (3)  Artificial  increase  of  variation,  p.  5  ; 
(4)  Excitement  of  variation,  p.  6  ;  (5)  Gain  by  use,  p.  6  ; 
(6)  Loss  by  atrophy,  p.  7  ;  (7)  Variation  made  permanent  by 
competition,  p.  10.  Immutability  of  general  type,  physical  and 
mental,  p.  11. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PRESENT  CHANGES  OF  CHARACTER. 

Loss  of  national  character  by  emigration,  p.  13;  by  promo- 
tion of  sloth,  p.  16.  Lack  of  adaptability,  p.  16.  Low  type  of 
public  pleasure,  p.  17.  Repression  of  character  by  communism, 
p.  20.  Conditions  of  successful  communism,  p.  20.  Com- 
munism in  early  Christianity,  p.  23.  Intense  competition 
among  herbivora,  p.  25.  Communism  fatalistic,  p.  26. 
Destruction  of  character  by  municipal  communism,  p.  26. 


x  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    III. 

TRADE  UNIONISM,    ITS   FLOWER  AND   FRUITION. 

Town  influence  in  Rome,  p.  28.  Decay  of  the  country,  p.  29. 
Growth  of  trade  unions,  p.  30.  Trade  unions  compulsory,  p.  30. 
Cheap  production  for  the  proletariat,  p.  32.  Sharing  of  prole- 
tariat burden  by  a  trade,  p.  32.  All  property  hypothecated  to 
the  Trade  Unions,  p.  33.  The  social  burden  the  destruction  of 
Rome,  p.  34.  The  growth  of  the  little-Italy  party,  p.  35.  Devo- 
lution of  government,  p.  36.  The  state  regulation  of  prices  and 
wages,  p.  37. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

REVOLUTION   OR   EVOLUTION  ? 

Great  effects  best  produced  by  small  causes,  p.  40.  Revolu- 
tion leads  to  greater  tyranny,  p.  40 ;  also  leads  to  military 
despotism,  p.  41.  Radical  changes  show  ignorance,  p.  42. 
Scope  to  be  allowed  for  gradual  change,  p.  43.  Variability 
tolerated  by  bye-laws,  p.  44.  Effects  of  small  changes  as  seen 
in  Death  Duties  and  reduced  colonising  power,  p.  44 ;  Income 
tax  and  expulsion  of  trade,  p.  47  ;  benefits  of  taxing  extrava- 
gance, p.  52  ;  Irish  tenant  right,  p.  53  ;  high  interest  on  loans, 
p.  55  ;  equalisation  of  land  values,  p.  56  ;  growth  of  cities,  p.  57. 
Effect  of  workmen's  compensation,  p.  58  ;  of  old  age  pensions, 
p.  59 ;  of  state  help  for  children,  p.  60.  Effects  of  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  different  classes,  p.  60. 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE  NEED  OF  DIVERSITY. 

Variability  needful  for  advance  of  a  species,  p.  65.  Large 
states  a  necessary  result  of  rapid  communication,  p.  66.  Diver- 
sity needed  therefore  within  the  state,  as  well  as  between 
states,  p.  67.  No  moral  obligation  to  uniformity,  p.  67. 
Separate  states  needed  for  a  doubled-centred  diversity,  p.  70. 
Diversity  as  yet  remaining  in  marriage-law  and  custom,  p.  71. 
Society  a  mixture  of  many  past  stages  of  culture,  p.  72.    Present 


CONTENTS.  xi 

education  a  bar  to  progress  by  diversity,  p.  "]?>.     Need  of  diver- 
sity in  education,  p.  75. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

LINES   OF  ADVANCE. 

Personal  initiative  essential,  p.  78.  Prevention  of  waste  the 
main  principle  of  advance,  p.  79.  Gain  in  health,  p.  79.  Gain 
in  amount  of  activities  of  life,  p.  80.  Gain  in  rapidity,  p.  81. 
Gain  by  working  instead  of  playing,  p.  81.  Gain  by  saving 
waste  in  renewal,  p.  83.  Gain  by  permanent  marriage,  p.  84. 
Gain  by  high-tending  of  families,  p.  85.  Gain  by  improving  or 
weeding  of  bad  stocks,  p.  86.  Gain  by  individualism,  p.  89. 
Gain  by  free  combinations,  p.  92.  Gain  by  international 
labour,  p.  93.  The  meaning  of  war,  by  trade,  by  armament, 
and  by  violence,  p.  95.  Improvement  of  checks,  p.  99.  The 
ultimate  type  of  states,  p.  100.  The  ultimate  type  of  man, 
p.  101. 


Index 104 


JANUS  IN  MODERN   LIFE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

CHARACTER,   THE   BASIS  OF  SOCIETY. 

In  considering  or  designing  any  kind  of  work  the 
first  and  most  essential  condition  is  the  quality  of 
material  that  has  to  be  used.  "  You  cannot  make  a 
silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear."  And  what  is  true 
materially  is  true  also  mentally  ;  the  character  of  a 
people  is  the  essential  basis  of  all  their  institutions 
and  government.  If  we  intend  to  consider  what 
improvements  are  possible,  or  what  degradations  may 
occur,  we  must  treat  the  matter  entirely  as  a  question 
of  character.  "  For  forms  of  Government  let  fools 
contest,  whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best,"  and 
the  administration  depends  upon  the  character  of  the 
people.  We  see  on  all  sides  that  races  of  a  low 
character  necessarily  pass,  by  the  force  of  events, 
under  the  domination  of  other  races  who  have  a 
higher  or  stronger  character.  It  is  the  quality  of  the 
race  which  is  the  most  essential  and  determining 
factor  in  its  history.  That  every  nation  has  the  kind 
of  government  which  it  deserves,  is  an  old  remark, 
which  implies  that  its  character  determines  its  fate. 

J.  B 


a  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

7    :-  diligent  but  cautious  Scot ;  the  slovenly  Slovene 
the  self-deceived  Gaul;    the  tediously  complete  and 
g  ical  German  ;  these  all  show  the  manner  in  which 

-rration  is  the  product  of  the  individual 
:er.     Furtl    :    happiness  is   essentially  depen- 
dent  upon  character,  and  is — by  comparison — deter- 
on  oed  by  character  alone,  almost  apart  from  external 
:.::..  v  stances 

[-.  b  therefore  a  matter  of  the  first  importance  to 
consider  how  character  is  produced  or  modified. 
Possfl  : :  sc  me  it  may  appear  presumptuous  to 
v  :o  the  mind  those  natural  laws  which  it  is  now 
genera.  _reed  apply  to  bodily  development.  Yet 
even  the  probabilities  of  chance  distribution  may  be 
shown  to  apply  to  the  varieties  of  mind  ;  both  by 
rough  observation  in  general,  and  also  by  a  test  case 
ititati   e  lied    s  ee  Religion  and  Conscience  in 

-  b  :  ;:  .  A  feeling  against  this  treatment  of 
the  mind  by  material  law  is  based  on  the  idea  that  it 
implies  a:",  absence  of  free-will.  But,  to  take  an 
stration,  a  railway  company  may  be  certain  of 
carrying  very  :  ---  .  the  same  number  of  passengers 
each  day,  without  in  the  least  embarrassing  the  free- 
: :'  any  passenger  as  to  whether  or  no  he  will 
travel.  Let  us  notice,  therefore,  how  the  various 
principles  of  physical  modification  are  applicable  also 
: :  mental  change.  Whether  it  may  be  that  changes 
take  |  lace  by  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characteris- 
tics, or  whether  they  occur  solely  by  accidental 
nation  which  proves  beneficial,  is  a  much  debated 
quer:  :  which  .;  not  requisite  for  us  to  settle  here. 
It  is  agreed  that  in  the  physical  life  of  all  animals  it 
ma;    ...    seen  that:  Favourable  variations  give  a 


CHARACTER.  THE  BASIS  OF    SOCIETY.     3 

determining  advantage  to  one  individual  over  another, 
or  to  one  more  than  another  against  a  common 
enemy;  (2)  Useful  variations  tend  to  be  maintained 
in  successive  generations  ;  (3)  Artificial  conditions 
tend  to  produce  variation  ;  (4)  Greater  variability 
accompanies  unusual  developments;  (5)  Growth  is 
directed  and  encouraged  'zy  use  ;  and  (6),  as  the 
total  activity  is  limited,  therefore  disuse  causes 
atrophy  and  degradation,  by  favouring  of  parts  more 
used.  To  these  follows  the  important  corollary  (7) : 
Variation  being  only  of  benefit  where  there  is  com- 
petition in  which  it  gives  an  advantage,  its  improve- 
ments will  cease  to  be  maintained  in  the  absence  of 
competition ;  it  is  only  competition  which  makes 
improved  variations  permanent.  For  instance,  if 
there  were  no  camivora  the  swifter  deer  would  not 
have  found  their  pace  a  benefit,  and  there  would  be 
no  sufficient  cause  for  their  attaining  their  present 
swiftness.  In  place  of  looking  on  selection  as  merely 
a  struggle  we  must  look  on  it  as  the  sole  physical 
means  of  permanent  elevation,  the  motor  which  has 
raised  even.-  species  to  its  present  point  of  ability. 

To  these  principles  common  to  all  organic  nature 
must  be  added  another  which  is  almost  peculiar  to 
man  alone.  We  often  hear  that  environment  is  the 
determinant  of  the  nature  of  both  animals  and  man. 
But  the  distinctive  quality  of  man  is  the  subjection  of 
the  environment  to  the  ruling  faculty ;  man  is  not 
necessarily  conditioned  by  his  environment,  but  a 
direct  measure  of  his  civilisation  is  the  extent  to  whi :.. 
he  creates  his  own  conditions.  0:her  communal 
animals,  as  the  ant,  the  bee,  or  the  beaver,  have 
anticipated  this  to  some  extent ;  but  in  man  alone  can 

B  2 


4  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

the  ruling  faculty  rise  to  an  entire  reversal  of  almost 
every  condition  of  environment. 

The  mental  equivalents  of  these  physical  modifica- 
tions are  obviously  true  in  common  experience  and  in 
historical  example. 

(i)  That  a  favourable  variation  of  mind  gives  a 
determining  advantage  needs  no  illustration,  as  every 
sharp  and  able  man  of  business  has  shown  this  in  all 
ages. 

(2)  That   mental  qualities  are  inherited  has  been 
pretty  generally  recognised,  and  the  work  of  Galton 
on  Hereditary  Genius  has  enforced  this  by  statistical 
example.      But  the  historical  consequences  have  not 
been  sufficiently  noticed  ;  for  it  is  obviously  possible 
by  selective  action  to  increase  or  diminish  not  only 
the  bodily  activity  but  also  the  mental  ability  seen  in 
the  whole  community.     The  series  of  proscriptions  of 
all  the  leading  men  of  Rome,  alternately  on  one  side 
and  then  on  the  other,  from  Marius  down  to  Octavius, 
was  so  disastrous  a  drain  of  political  ability,  that  only 
the  Julian   family  was  left  ;  and  there  was  never  an 
able  emperor  of  Roman  ancestry  after  that  line  was 
extinct.      The   expulsion    of    the    Huguenots    from 
France  drained  it  of  the  active  middle  class  minds,  and 
left   the   great  gap  in    the   continuity   of  sympathy 
which    made    the    Revolution    possible.      The    later 
expulsion  or  extermination  also  of  the  active  upper 
class  minds  drained  that  land  of  nearly  all  the  here- 
ditary ability  of  the  race  :  the  consequence  has  been 
to  leave  at  the  present  day  a  nation  of  mediocrities, 
among  whom  there  is  but  a  fraction  of  the  genius  seen 
in  Germany  and  England  on  either  side  of  it.    Almost 
every   leading   name   is   that   of  a  foreigner,  as  for 


CHARACTER,  THE   BASIS   OF  SOCIETY.     5 

instance  Waddington,  Zurlinden,  Eiffel,  Reinach, 
Rothschild,  Gambetta,  Maspero.  Another  very 
important  consideration  is  that  sporadic  ability  is 
not  inherited  in  the  same  manner  as  long  continued 
family  ability.  Not  a  single  Roman  Emperor  who 
rose  solely  from  his  individual  powers  left  a  worthy 
and  capable  son.  The  Gordians  were  a  good  sena- 
torial family,  and  ran  through  three  generations  on 
the  throne.  In  England  the  same  thing  is  seen.  The 
main  source  of  new  men  of  ability  is  from  sturdy 
Puritan  or  Quaker  stocks  that  have  long  practised 
self-denial  and  hard  work  ;  old  families  with  long 
traditions  of  public  service  continue  usually  on  the 
same  line  of  ability ;  but  the  nonveaux  riches  who 
have  sprung  forward  on  some  lucky  speculation  or 
trade  enterprise  usually  go  hopelessly  to  pieces  in  the 
next  generation.  The  longer  a  useful  type  has  been 
maintained  the  more  stable  it  is. 

(3)  That  artificial  conditions  tend  to  produce 
variation  is  obvious  in  every  civilisation.  The  more 
intense  is  the  artificiality  of  life,  the  greater  are  the 
extremes  of  ability  and  incompetence,  of  riches  and 
poverty,  accompanying  it.  It  is  often  a  problem  to 
kind  hearts  that  there  should  be  such  misery  and 
degradation  side  by  side  with  the  ease  and  welfare  of 
civilisation.  The  answer  is  that  it  is  inevitable, 
because  the  very  same  artificiality  which  gives  scope 
to  the  capable  to  rise,  equally  gives  scope  for  the 
incapable  to  fall.  Every  chance,  every  opening, 
every  benefit  attainable  by  exertion,  is  a  means  of 
advance  to  him  who  uses  it ;  but  it  is  accompanied 
by  equal  chances  of  failure,  equal  openings  to  loss, 
equal  injuries    resulting   from    sloth,    which   are  the 


6  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

equally  sure  means  of  degradation  for  those  who  have 
not  the  wit  or  energy  to  avoid  them.  The  "  submerged 
tenth "  is  the  inevitable  complement  of  the  leading 
tenth. 

(4)  Greater  variability  of  mind  accompanies  unusual 
development ;  this  is  seen  in  the  great  outbursts  of 
mental  activity  which  have  occurred  along  with 
external  expansion  in  the  times  of  Elizabeth  and  of 
Victoria.  Or  in  earlier  times  the  growth  of  Greek 
literature  following  the  Periclean  expansion,  or  of 
Roman  literature  with  the  Augustan  settlement  of 
the  world. 

(5)  Mental  growth  is  directed  and  encouraged  by 
use.  This  fact  is  so  obvious  that  it  is  proverbial,  as 
in  the  saying,  "  The  mind  grows  by  what  it  feeds 
upon."  All  mental  training  and  teaching  recognise 
this,  but  it  is  true  in  later  life  as  well  as  in  youth.  It 
is  well  known  how  in  the  least  civilised  races  small 
children  are  as  advanced — or  more  so — than  in  higher 
races.  The  Australian  is  said  to  come  to  a  standstill 
at  ten  or  twelve  years  old.  The  Egyptian  seldom 
advances  mentally  after  sixteen.  A  low-class 
Englishman  does  not  improve  after  twenty  or  so.  A 
capable  man  will  continue  to  expand  till  thirty  or 
forty.  And  the  man  of  the  greatest  capacity  will 
continue  to  grow  mentally,  and  assimilate  new  lines 
of  thought,  until  seventy  or  eighty. 

Thus  the  greater  the  power  of  use  and  the  activity 
of  the  mind,  the  longer  will  it  continue  to  grow. 
This  may  well  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  main  tests  of 
a  great  mind  ;  and  it  is  strictly  in  accord  with  the 
system  of  the  well-known  embryonic  changes  passing 
from  lower  to  higher  stages,  and  continuing  to  grow 


CHARACTER,  THE   BASIS  OF  SOCIETY.     7 

in  development  into  higher  and  higher  types.  The 
savage  ceased  to  grow  mentally  even  while  in  child- 
hood ;  the  sage  continues  the  expansion  of  mind  to 
extreme  old  age. 

(6)  Disuse  of  mind  causes  atrophy  and  degrada- 
tion. This  principle  is  one  of  the  most  important  of 
all  in  its  practical  bearings.  The  familiar  figure  of 
the  later  Merovings,  the  rois  faineants,  is  an  historical 
example  :  freed  from  all  necessity  of  thought  by  the 
assiduity  of  the  mayors  of  the  palace,  the  family  mind 
atrophied  further  in  each  generation,  until  the  king 
became  a  puppet  without  volition  in  royal  affairs. 
The  same  working  may  be  seen  in  the  upper  classes 
of  many  countries,  where  the  spur  of  the  necessity  of 
action  ceases.  Within  a  century  of  the  cessation  of 
the  Moorish  wars  the  chivalry  of  Spain  began  to 
atrophy  ;  the  same  was  seen  in  a  century  after  the 
cessation  of  civil  war  in  France.  In  England  the 
strong  tradition  of  training  for  the  public  careers  in 
the  civil  and  military  services  and  parliament,  has 
saved  the  upper  classes  more  than  elsewhere.  But  a 
rich  family  without  active  interests  almost  always 
shows  atrophy  of  mind.  There  is  a  fine  saying  of 
Mencius,  "  Those  whom  God  destines  for  some  great 
part,  He  first  chastens  by  suffering  and  toil."  The 
same  tendency  to  atrophy  is  equally  seen  in  the 
lower  classes,  when  the  necessity  of  self-help  is 
removed.  And  many  of  the  modern  movements 
have  been  of  a  degrading  tendency,  leading  to  the 
holding  back  of  the  capable  and  the  artificial  help  of  the 
incapable.  It  is  obvious  that  if  persons  have  retro- 
graded and  got  into  difficulties,  they  are  presumably 
less  capable  than  those  around  them.     If  then  they  are 


8  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

relieved  independently  of  their  own  exertions,  their 
incapacity  is  fostered  and  they  retrograde  still  further. 
To  compensate  them  for  their  incapacity  by  relief 
works,  by  farm  colonies,  by  outdoor  relief  doles,  by 
maintenance  of  their  children,  will  inevitably  lead  to 
further  atrophy  of  mind.  The  doctrine  of  equality  of 
wages  in  a  trade  is  a  double  injury,  it  encourages  the 
most  incapable  man  that  can  possibly  squeeze  into 
the  trade,  and  it  discourages  the  capable  man  who  is 
worth  far  more  than  the  average.  It  must  tend  to 
drive  capable  men  out  of  the  trades  which  they  might 
have  raised  by  their  example  and  stimulus,  into  other 
lines  where  capacity  can  still  earn  its  value.  The 
mental  atrophy  that  has  come  over  ordinary  workmen 
is  appalling,  at  least  in  the  region  of  London.  In  case 
after  case,  the  common  sense  and  intelligence  seems 
to  have  been  entirely  lost,  and  the  grossest  blunders 
will  be  made  by  well-paid  men  ;  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  in  most  business  a  really  capable  and  active  man 
can  do  from  three  to  six  times  as  much  as  the  average 
workman,  beside  avoiding  the  loss  of  time  by  mistakes. 
In  short  a  certified  ease  of  conditions,  and  absence  of 
direct  penalties  of  incapacity,  has  atrophied  the 
ordinary  working  mind  to  a  point  which  is  dangerously 
low  in  comparison  with  that  of  other  races.  The 
remedy  lies  in  training  the  incapable  by  a  stern 
discipline  of  gradually  teaching  them  the  maximum 
that  they  can  perform  in  the  day,  with  good  direction 
and  avoidance  of  bad  conditions.  After  a  couple  of 
years  of  such  intensive  training  they  should  be  drafted 
into  ordinary  factories,  with  the  warning  that  if  they 
fall  out  of  work  again,  another  year's  compulsory  hard 
training  will  be  the  result. 


CHARACTER,  THE  BASIS  OF  SOCIETY.     9 

In  another  way  this  atrophy  of  mind  may  be  seen 
and  felt  as  a  temporary  condition  by  members  of 
boards  and  committees.  What  is  everyone's  business 
is  nobody's  business  ;  and  when  each  person  feels 
that  he  is  not  personally  responsible,  a  numbness  and 
inaction  ensues  which  is  characteristic  of  such  bodies. 
Men,  any  one  of  whom  would  act  sensibly  when  alone, 
will  succumb  to  the  paralysing  sense  that  they  need 
not  think  because  nine  other  men  are  doing  so,  and 
the  results  are  well  known  as  characterising  these 
assemblies  which  have  "  neither  a  body  to  be  kicked 
nor  a  soul  to  be  damned."  There  are  very  few 
public  bodies  which  are  not  really  dependent  on  the 
individual  thought  and  design  of  one  person,  criticised 
and  amended  by  the  collateral  views  of  others.  In 
short,  all  action  and  rule  must  be  personal  and  not 
corporate,  however  much  the  person  may  be  checked 
and  controlled  by  general  opinion  of  the  public,  or  of 
a  restricted  body.  Without  personal  initiative  atrophy 
is  the  result. 

Another  great  theatre  of  mental  atrophy  is  officialism, 
where  a  man  is  bound  to  follow  certain  rules  and 
routine  rather  than  to  think.  A  German  has  remarked 
to  me  that  a  man  who  is  perfectly  reasonable  and  in- 
telligent in  private  life  becomes  quite  foolish  as  soon 
as  he  enters  his  office.  This  constant  result  is  the 
strongest  reason  for  not  extending  official  control  of 
affairs  needlessly,  or  the  management  of  public  work 
by  officials.  Private  enterprise  will  always  be  more 
effective  than  an  official  system,  because  it  is  solely 
the  result  of  individual  initiative.  The  enormous 
monopolies  of  railways  in  England  are  on  the  whole 
far    more    beneficial    to    the    public    than    the    State 


io  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

railways  of  other  countries.  The  evils  of  corporate 
monopoly,  checked  by  law  and  supervision  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  are  less  than  the  evil  of  stagnation  by 
official  atrophy.  In  the  Republic  of  France  the  prin- 
cipal line  runs  its  best  trains  slower  than,  and  at  three 
times  the  cost  of,  the  best  trains  on  great  English 
lines. 

(7)  It  is  only  competition  which  makes  permanent 
the  improved  mental  variations  which  occur.  The 
evils  of  competition  in  physical  things  almost  dis- 
appear in  the  mental  field  ;  and,  unless  misused  as  in 
a  foolishly  designed  examination,  there  seems  an  un- 
mixed benefit  from  unlimited  competition  of  mind. 
It  is  only  by  such  competition  that  higher  types  of 
ability  have  been  established  in  the  past,  and  it  is  to 
such  that  we  must  look  for  future  improvement.  It  is 
true  that  in  various  directions  we  find  a  dislike  of 
competition  ;  but  that  is  the  surest  sign  that  it  is 
effective,  and  therefore  beneficial  to  the  whole  body. 

We  see  then  that  each  of  those  principles  which 
rule  in  physical  modification  is  equally  true  of  mental 
modification. 

But  though  the  modes  of  mental  variation  may  be 
fairly  clear,  we  must  not  be  carried  away  by  the  view 
that  therefore  great  changes  in  man  are  to  be 
expected.  The  effects  of  various  conditions  upon  the 
body  are  tolerably  familiar,  yet  the  average  form  of 
man  has  varied  extraordinarily  little  during  ten 
thousand  years.  The  highest  type  of  ancient  man 
differs  almost  inappreciably  from  the  highest  type  of 
modern  man,  certainly  by  not  a  tenth  of  the  difference 
that  may  be  seen  between  different  types  at  present. 
It  may  be  practically  said  that  man  is  at  a  standstill 


CHARACTER,  THE   BASIS  OF  SOCIETY,  n 

in  physical  development.       Sanitary   improvements 
and  better  feeding  may  do  great  things,  but  they  leave 
the  essential  form  and  constitution  unaltered.     The 
same  is  true  of  mind.  When  we  become  familiar  with 
details   of  early    ages  nothing    is    more    astonishing 
than  to  see  how  unaltered  the  mind  of  man  is  in  its 
essentials.     In  tales  and   maxims  six  thousand  years 
old  we  see  not  only  the  common  stock  of  primary 
instincts,  but  also  the  finesse  of  conduct  in  public  life, 
the    modes    of    ensuring    respect    in    dealing    with 
superiors  and  inferiors,  the  attention  to   very  varied 
elements  of  character,  and  a  fine  suavity  and  kindli- 
ness pervading  the  whole.     There  is  not  a  single  class 
or  a  single  public  body  at  present  that   practically 
stands  as  high  as  the  ideal  of  two  hundred  generations 
ago.     And  when  we  look  at  the  material  civilisation 
we  see  still  farther  back  the  appreciation  of  qualities 
of  work  which  only  a  very  small   proportion  of  man- 
kind   care   for  now.      The    overwhelming    zeal    for 
minute  accuracy  was   as    perfect   a   mental  state  at 
4700  B.C.  as  it  is  in  a  Royal    Society  paper  of  our 
day.     The  subject  and  the   method  have  changed  ; 
but  the  mental   attitude  is  the  same  in  a  man  who 
demanded,  and  in  those  who  executed,  beautifully  true 
plane  surfaces,  and   long  measurements  exact  to  far 
within  the  variation  of  size  caused  by  a  hot  or  a  cold 
day,  and  the  men   now  who  triangulate  a  continent 
and  measure  the  world.     The  mind  is  the  same,  only 
the    stock-in-trade    of    it    has    increased.      At    the 
beginning  of  history  the  palaces  were  adorned  with 
table  services  cut  in  the  hardest  and   most  beautiful 
stones,  exquisitely   formed   and  polished  ;  and  such 
homes  were  assuredly  inhabited  by  men  whose  tastes 


12  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

and  artistic  sense  were  closely  the  same  as  the  best  of 
ours,  and  who  would,  like  us,  have  revolted  at  most  of 
the  products  of  the  present  time.  Not  only  was  there 
the  body  of  highly  skilled  and  intelligent  men  to  do 
such  work,  but  there  must  have  been  a  widely  spread 
standard  of  taste  demanding  this  exquisite  work  as 
an  aesthetic  pleasure.  The  nature  of  mind  is  un- 
changed, its  motives,  its  feelings,  its  sense  of  life  ; 
only  in  knowledge  and  the  applications  of  it  do  we 
differ  from  the  earliest  civilisation  that  we  can  trace. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  unreal  for  us  to  anticipate  any 
change  in  the  essential  nature  of  man  in  the  next  few 
thousand  years.  The  increase  of  knowledge  and  its 
applications  will  not  alter  that  nature,  or  the  relation 
of  mind  to  mind.  We  shall  still  desire  and  admire 
the  same  things,  and  be  moved  by  the  same  impulses  ; 
and  we  may  neglect  as  ignorant  dreams  all  specula- 
tions about  any  essential  changes  in  the  motives  or 
constitution  of  man. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER. 

Having  now  seen  how  the  fluctuations  of  amend- 
ment or  deterioration  of  character,  are  subject  to  the 
same  common  laws  as  those  of  the  variation  of 
physical  structure,  we  are  in  a  position  to  see  more 
clearly  the  effect  of  gradual  changes  around  us  in 
England.  Emigration  has  been  very  active  in  the 
past  three  generations,  and  immigration  has  recently 
become  important.  The  loss  of  the  earliest  emigrants 
who  moved  for  religious  and  political  reasons  affected 
the  national  character  very  little  ;  there  was  plenty  of 
solid  character  remaining  in  England,  and  the 
removal  of  the  more  disputatious  elements  gave  added 
strength  to  those  who  continued  at  home.  The  com- 
pulsory emigration  of  convicts  was  similarly  a  gain 
by  removing  those  who  were  most  out  of  harmony 
with  the  majority.  Happily  those  whose  characters 
made  it  most  irksome  to  them  to  comply  with  the 
legal  formulae  of  life  at  home,  were  just  those  best 
suited  for  the  type  of  a  new  country,  less  restrained 
and  more  varied,  with  greater  scope  for  enterprise. 
So  far  there  had  been  a  gain  by  removal  of  the  two 
extreme  types.  But  then  succeeded  a  most  serious 
movement  of  the  voluntary  selection  of  persons  who 
thought  that  their  energies  would  have  a  better  and 
more   remunerative   scope    in    the    colonies.      This 


i4  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

implied  a  draining  away  of  those  who  had  intelligence 
to  choose  a  more  promising  career,  energy  to  break 
with  their  present  life  and  start  afresh,  and  who  pos- 
sessed  most  adaptability,  self-reliance,  and   hopeful- 
ness.    All   of  these  qualities   are  greatly  needed   at 
home  for  a  prosperous  population ;  and  the  incessant 
natural  selection  from  the  general  mass,  and  removal 
of  those  who  had  most  of  such  qualities,  must  have 
produced   a  serious  effect  on   the  home   population. 
We    see    in    England    undoubtedly    a    lessening    of 
sturdiness  as  a  whole,  and  the  deficiency  of  the  abili- 
ties   which    have   been    most    exported.     There  is  a 
general   outcry   about    the   lack   of    adaptability    in 
business ;  and    the   general    want   of  self-reliance   is 
shown  by  all  the  grandmotherly  legislation  which  is 
sought  and  granted.     At  first  we  succeeded  in  getting 
rid  of  some  amount  of  less  desirable  stock  along  with 
the  capable  stock ;  but  in  later  years   most  countries 
will  not  admit  any  but  good  stock,  and  we  lose  the 
valuable  examples  of  national  character  without  any 
compensation.     The  drain  of  capacity  from  the  nation 
is  a  most  serious  feature  of  life  in  England  ;  and  how 
far  the  prominence  of  the  "submerged  tenth,"  and 
the  large  proportion  who  live  only  a  week's  remove 
from  starvation,  is  due  to  the  lowering  of  the  standard 
of  capacity  by  the  emigration  of  the  more  capable,  is 
a  very  important  question.     The  same  consideration 
applies  to  Ireland   in  a  far  more  acute   form,  as  the 
emigration  has  been  of  much  larger  proportions. 

A  large  immigration  into  England  has  recently 
grown  up.  So  far  as  this  is  of  more  energetic  men, 
who  see  their  way  to  win  over  our  heads,  they  should 
be  welcomed.     The  German  who  comes  to  England 


PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.     15 

to  establish  factories  and  exploit  the  English  market 
is  at  least  a  gain  to  the  country,  as  it  is  far  better  he 
should  do  this  in  England  rather  than  expend  all  that 
energy  and  management  out  of  England.  The  trade 
and  manufacture  of  England  have  been  largely  built 
up  by  immigrations  of  Flemings,  Huguenots,  Dutch, 
French,  and  now  Germans,  who  have  each  contributed 
to  our  capacity  for  work.  In  commercial  business 
the  foreign  influence  is  strong.  In  north-west  London 
one-tenth  of  the  private  residents  are  of  German 
origin.  A  movement  is  going  on  quite  comparable 
to  other  great  race  movements  of  past  history  ;  but  it 
only  affects  the  upper  classes,  and  not  the  hand- 
labourer.  Beside  this  there  is  the  large  movement  of 
the  lowest  and  most  depressed  mass  of  European 
humanity,  from  the  sink  of  poverty  in  Poland  and 
Western  Russia.  It  is  essentially  a  bad  stock,  one  of 
the  lowest  in  Europe ;  and  the  large  proportion  of 
criminal  cases  arising  among  these  immigrants  shows 
how  undesirable  they  are.  To  allow  such  a  low  type 
free  settlement  in  England,  after  draining  the  capable 
Englishmen  to  the  colonies,  makes  a  serious  danger 
of  a  national  collapse  under  a  sudden  pressure  of 
some  new  circumstances,  which  might  arise  by  trade 
or  warfare. 

Some  other  consequences  which  flow  from  recent 
changes  will  be  dealt  with  in  the  fourth  chapter  in 
considering  the  effects  of  small  causes. 

The  low  type  of  character  prevailing  in  all  classes 
in  England  at  present  needs  to  be  fully  recognised. 
No  doubt  there  has  been  in  past  centuries  more 
external  coarseness,  and  this  detail  strikes  the  atten- 
tion of  many  people  because  it  differs  from  their  own 


16  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

present  convention.     But  mere  directness  and  plain- 
ness of  speech  is  quite  immaterial  compared  with  the 
essentials  of  working  power  of  mind  and  body,  and 
the  capacity  for  intelligent  interests.     Some  centuries 
ago,  when  men  thought  more  about  the  quality  of 
their  actions,  sloth  was  ranked  as  one  of  the  seven 
deadly  sins.      But  now,   in  place  of  regarding  it  as 
anything  wrong,  there  is  an  elaborate  system  of  com- 
pulsory sloth ;  it  is  enforced  by  heavy  penalties,  and 
drilled  into  the  character  by  example  and  self-interest. 
One    man     is    forbidden    to   lay   more    than   three 
hundred  bricks  a   day,   another   forbidden  to    make 
more  than  so  many  glass  dishes,  another  forbidden  to 
attend  to  more  than  one  machine.     In  every  trade 
where  a  selfish  short-sighted   policy  has  gained  its 
way,  there  is  this  system,  which  is  doing  inconceivable 
harm  to  character.      The  compulsory  glorification  of 
sloth  is    the    most   deleterious    misfortune   that    can 
happen  to  a  nation.      The  wreck  of  wars,  pestilence 
and  famine,  will  leave  a  more  hopeful  prospect  than 
that  of  a  people  sunk  in  organised  sloth. 

Connected  with  this  is  the  strange  lack  of  thought 
and  adaptability  in  common  matters  of  everyday  life. 
The  daily  loss  of  time,  and  cost  in  trivial  matters, 
which  affects  thousands  of  persons,  makes  a  heavy  tax 
on  the  whole.  For  instance,  such  a  simple  matter  as 
putting  the  offices  of  a  terminal  station  at  the  ends  of 
the  platforms  is  still  ignored  at  many  termini ;  the 
name  of  a  station  is  often  hard  to  find,  and  is  never 
once  put  up  in  most  termini  ;  the  price  of  a  ticket  is 
often  not  to  be  discovered  ;  the  right  types  of  car- 
riages are  only  now  being  tried,  after  persevering  in  a 
wrong  form  for  two  generations.     In  the  streets  the 


PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.     17 

same  lack  of  sense  is  seen  in  the  immense  omnibus 
system,  which  is  difficult  to  use,  especially  for 
strangers,  owing  to  the  lack  of  numbered  routes  and 
conveyances.  It  has  been  officially  decided  that  the 
numbering  of  routes  and  omnibuses  is  beyond  the 
powers  of  the  London  County  Council ;  and  we  must 
be  compensated  by  the  pleasing  reflection  that  some- 
thing at  least  is  too  hard  for  that  body.  The  thought- 
less edict  however  was  enforced  that  every  vehicle 
must  carry  a  white  light  in  front,  and  all  the  distinc- 
tive colours  of  the  tram-car  lights  were  abolished, 
causing  great  inconvenience  at  night.  Even  in  the 
most  recent  appliances  the  same  dulness  is  shown  ; 
electric  fans  are  commonly  placed  where  they  only 
stir  foul  air,  and  not  where  they  draw  in  fresh  or  expel 
used  air.  The  whole  lighting  system  still  throws  away 
two  thirds  of  all  its  cost  by  lighting  sky  and  walls  as 
much  as  streets.  In  every  direction  it  seems  hard  to 
believe  that  five  minutes'  thought  has  been  given  to 
matters  costing  thousands  of  pounds.  If  we  traced 
such  a  mixture  of  design  and  of  chance  in  any  other 
subject  it  would  lead  to  some  curious  speculations  on 
the  implied  limitations  of  the  directing  Intellect.  And 
in  private  matters  it  is  the  same  ;  the  extraordinary 
blunders  and  oversights  in  common  trade  work  show 
that  the  most  obvious  details  have  not  had  a  minute's 
real  thought  given  to  their  arrangement.  The  result 
is  an  accumulation  of  difficulty  and  muddle  which 
cripples,  if  not  destroys,  the  purpose  of  the  work. 
This  persistent  dulness,  and  incapacity  for  manage- 
ment and  design,  shows  a  defect  of  character  which  is 
a  heavy  detriment  to  the  whole  community. 

The  pleasures  of  the  public  show  the  same  low  type 
J-  c 


18  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

as  their  business.  The  illustrated  papers  that  are 
read,  apart  from  serious  news,  are  a  revelation  of  the 
vacuity  of  the  public  mind,  as  the  advertisements  are 
a  testimony  to  its  imbecility.  The  absence  of  any 
thoughts  or  information  that  can  enlarge  the  mind,  or 
give  it  fresh  insight  or  understanding,  and  the  fatuity 
of  the  illustrations,  show  the  helpless  little  round  of 
common  ideas  of  the  well-to-do  classes :  while  the 
dishing  up  of  legal  filth  for  the  lower  classes,  and  the 
morbid  love  of  trivial  accidents  and  catastrophes, 
shows  terribly  the  mere  animalism  which  fills  their 
horizon.  The  one  subject  on  which  most  print  is 
spent  is  that  which  is  absolutely  futile,  sport  and 
games.  Whether  one  group  of  men,  selected  by  mere 
accident,  is  a  minute  trifle  more  active  than  another 
accidental  group,  is  a  matter  of  such  utter  insignifi- 
cance that  it  would  seem  impossible  to  suppose  that 
anyone  would  turn  the  head  to  see  the  result  decided. 
Yet  such  questions  absorb  most  of  the  interests  and 
spare  thoughts  and  reading  of  a  great  part — perhaps 
the  greater  part — of  the  population,  just  as  the  races 
of  the  circus  swamped  all  other  interests  of  the  deca- 
dent Roman.  The  results  which  they  crave  for  cannot 
possibly  mean  anything  to  the  present  or  to  the 
future,  as  the  selection  is  merely  due  to  accidental 
causes.  Even  a  lower  depth  is  the  relative  excellence 
of  two  horses  which  are  completely  unknown  to  the 
persons  who  speculate  on  them.  The  utter  waste  of 
thought  and  print  in  such  interests  is  a  form  of 
insanity  which  is  worse  than  a  drug  habit,  as  it  implies 
a  hopeless  atrophy  of  the  mind  to  interests  which 
would  help  it  or  develop  it. 

The  whole   interest  of  betting  on  sport,  and  also 


PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.    19 

of  gambling,  is  another  evidence  of  an  unwholesome 
condition.  It  implies  a  craving  for  excitement  apart 
from  personal  exertion,  which  is  always  a  bane  to 
character  ;  it  involves  the  idea  of  gain  apart  from 
labour  of  mind  or  body,  which  is  demoralising  to  the 
sense  of  work ;  it  results  in  unearned  fluctuations, 
which  induce  a  wasteful  habit ;  and  it  is  based  on  the 
essentially  ungentlemanly  principle  of  benefiting  by 
the  loss  of  another,  whereas  all  honourable  gain  is  by 
the  sharing  of  the  benefits  of  labour.  If  a  large  part 
of  the  public  are  determined  on  deteriorating  in  this 
manner,  it  might  be  better  for  the  community  to 
satisfy  it  by  public  lottery,  where  one  party  is  the 
government,  which  at  least  removes  the  last-named 
serious  detriment  to  character.  The  gaming  at 
Monte  Carlo  is  moral  compared  with  promiscuous 
betting. 

The  objections  to  such  forms  of  interest  are  perhaps 
too  often  urged  by  moralists  who  wish  to  cause  an 
alteration  in  the  customs  around  them.  Even  if  we 
can  care  for  the  benefit  of  persons  with  such  interests, 
certainly  we  are  not  likely  to  make  any  difference  to 
them  by  talking  on  the  subject.  But  as  students  ot 
diseased  society  we  may  take  a  deep  interest  in  such 
forms  of  aberration  as  a  pathologist  may  in  a  case  of 
cancer.  And  it  is  difficult  to  feel  any  particular  wish 
to  change  habits  which  so  obviously  belong  to  a  bad 
stock  that  is  hardly  worth  improving.  The  best  hope 
is  that  the  unmitigated  results  of  such  mental  disease 
may  quickly  have  full  effect  on  the  type,  and  result  in 
its  extermination  before  a  better  class  or  better  race. 
So  far  as  cure  is  possible,  the  most  hopeful  direction 
is  by  an   increase  of  useful   and  beneficial  interests, 

c  2 


20  JANUS   IN    MODERN   LIFE. 

which  will  make  such  vapid  and  senseless  amusements 
decay  by  mere  disgust. 

The  distaste  for  work  and  craving  for  amusement 
extends  beyond  the  above  limits  in  a  manner  very 
deleterious  to  character.  It  is  a  feature  of  a  decaying 
civilisation,  as  shown  on  the  later  Mykenaean  frescoes, 
and  the  rage  for  the  circus  in  later  Roman  times. 
Besides  the  waste  of  time  and  labour,  it  acts  in- 
juriously in  producing  a  restless  incapable  type  of 
mind,  brought  more  forward  lately  in  motoring  ;  and 
also  by  creating  a  false  social  atmosphere,  in  which 
the  business  of  life  is  contemned  and  treated  as  a 
drudgery,  instead  of  being  a  main  subject  of  interest 
and  emulation.  As  the  shrewd  Carl  Peters  remarks 
on  English  society,  "Nobody  can  fail  to  be  struck 
by  its  utter  recklessness  and  shallowness,"  and  "  an 
increasing  objection  to  labour  is  noticeable  right 
through  the  British  nation." 

These  various  forms  of  a  low  type  of  character 
are  on  the  increase,  and  it  does  not  seem  at  all 
likely  that  they  will  be  checked,  except  by  great 
disasters  which  remove  the  less  capable  part  of  the 
population,  and  compel  the  rest  to  adopt  a  more 
energetic  mode  of  life. 

Among  the  various  movements  which  are  by  some 
expected  to  benefit  character,  the  communistic  ideals 
have  enthusiastic  support.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  all  such  types  of  society  tend  to  repress 
ability.  If  any  form  of  communism  is  to  succeed 
there  must  be  a  fixed  minimum  of  labour  compulsory 
on  each  member  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  human 
nature  will  take  the  minimum  limit  as  all  that  need 
be  done.     The    tendency  will  be  to  drag  down  all 


PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.    21 

energy  to  the  speed  of  the  weakest.  Moreover,  if 
there  is  to  be  any  private  peculium  outside  of  the 
share  of  common  produce,  the  able  man  will  at  once 
rise  into  a  capitalist;  if  no  private  peculium  is  toler- 
ated it  is  certain  that  ability  will  be  driven  out  to 
other  lands,  or  to  other  lines  of  life  where  communism 
cannot  be  enforced.  It  must  always  be  kept  in  view 
that  mediocrity  hates  ability,  wherever  it  comes  into 
comparison  or  competition  ;  and  in  a  uniform  com- 
munity, mediocrity  must  be  dominant,  and  ability 
persecuted. 

Again  the  communistic  type  tends  to  repress  varia- 
tion and  diversity  by  making  everyone  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  dull  average  ;  and  this  repression  is 
most  fatal  to  due  advance  by  natural  selection  of 
beneficial  variation.  We  may  see  in  France  how  a 
centralised  management  by  the  State  accompanies 
the  lack  of  enterprise  in  affairs.  It  is  notorious  that 
in  business  the  French  will  not  spend  freely  on  creating 
new  openings  and  encouraging  new  demand.  Pro- 
bably the  habit  of  mind  and  the  type  of  government 
act  and  react  by  one  intensifying  the  other. 

Where  we  can  study  an  actual  working  system  of 
communism  in  such  a  climate  as  our  own,  we  see  that 
it  only  succeeded  by  some  elaborate  and  very  forcible 
regulations.  To  outsiders,  ignorant  of  the  machine, 
the  less  advanced  states  of  society  are  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  very  simple,  and  to  leave  a  large  amount 
of  liberty.  On  the  contrary,  whenever  a  barbaric  or 
savage  society  is  really  understood,  the  complexity 
which  is  essential  to  its  success  is  seen  to  be  even 
greater  than  among  ourselves.  The  movement  of 
society  has  been  from  an  earlier  complexity  of  special 


22  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

restriction,  to  a  later  generalised  simplicity.  The 
whole  of  northern  Europe  appears  to  have  had  a  very 
similar  system  of  communal  organisation,  which  has 
been  mainly  brought  to  light  by  the  researches  of  Dr. 
Seebohm.  The  peace  was  kept  by  making  every 
relation  of  a  man  responsible  for  his  actions  ;  either 
wounding  in  any  degree,  or  murder,  had  to  be  com- 
pounded for  by  fines  extending  even  to  distant 
cousins,  which  were  payable  to  the  similar  relations 
of  the  injured  or  murdered  man.  The  immediate 
male  relatives,  father,  son,  brother,  and  first  cousin, 
were  responsible  for  two-thirds  of  the  blood  money, 
and  other  relations  to  the  fifteenth  degree  made  up 
the  remainder.  Thus  the  criminal  law  was  communal 
in  a  full  sense  ;  and  injuries  were  fully  compensated 
in  a  manner  which  made  every  man  his  brother's 
keeper  in  a  real  communism.  How  would  modern 
admirers  of  communism  like  to  undertake  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  making  up  for  the  misdeeds  of  every 
relative  ?  Yet  that  is  an  essential  part  of  communal 
duties. 

The  poor-law  system,  as  revealed  in  the  Norse 
laws,  was  that  all  the  poorer  men  were  bound  to  do  a 
certain  amount  of  work  for  their  chief,  like  the  pay- 
ment of  taxes  at  present,  which  amounts  now  to  more 
than  a  month's  work  in  the  year.  In  return  the  chief 
was  bound  to  see  that  they  were  insured  against 
extreme  poverty  or  distress.  They  were  free  to 
accumulate  wealth  if  they  had  the  ability  to  do  so, 
but  their  bargains  and  marriages  had  to  be  ratified  by 
the  chief  in  order  to  safeguard  them  from  the  follies 
of  incapacity.  When  a  man  wished  to  resign  this 
position  of  insurance  against  misfortune  there  was  no 


PRESENT   CHANGES    OF   CHARACTER.    23 

objection  to  his  independence,  and  he  could  do  so  on 
paying  a  small  fee,  and  having  a  feast  with  the  chief 
and  witnesses.     But  if  after  that  he  played  the  fool, 
and  his  family  came  to  naught,  no  one  was  responsible 
for  them,  as  he  had  resigned  his  insurance.     There 
was  but  one  course  left,  a  wide  grave  in  the  church- 
yard  received   the  whole  family  alive,   and  only  the 
one  who  survived  longest  had  the  right  to  live  at  the 
cost  of  his   chief  afterwards.     Such  was  the  price  of 
communal  support ;  and  this  decisive  treatment,  even 
in  Christian  times,  ensured  the  sturdiness  of  the  hardy 
Norseman,    by    effectively    weeding    the    incapable. 
This   was  the    practical   working   of  the    communal 
system  which  did  not  check  ability,  and  which  suc- 
ceeded in  our  climate  in  past  times.     It   needed    a 
fuller  organisation  of  penalties  and  obligations  than 
our  present   individualism  ;  and  whether    any    com- 
munism could  permanently  succeed  with  less   com- 
pulsion may  gravely  be  doubted.     In  using  the  terms 
Socialism  and   Communism   they  are  taken  here  in 
their  widest  sense,  as    referring   to   all   the   courses 
opposed  to  individualism.     Such  is  the  general  usage 
of  our  language  at  present,  and  we  cannot  restrict 
these  terms  solely  to  extreme  views,  as  some  of  their 
advocates  would  wish.     Moreover,  it  is  the  influence 
of  views  on  practical  life  that  we  are  considering,  and 
not  an  ideal  state  which  never  has  been  realised,  and 
probably  never  can  be  put  in  practice. 

A  favourite  idea  has  been  that  the  New  Testament 
teaching  favours  communism.  To  many  such  an 
authority  would  be  decisive  ;  and  those  who  would 
not  accept  it  as  authoritative,  must  consider  that  the 
teaching  is  at  least  that  of  men  who  had  such  an 


24  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

instinctive  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  such 
sympathy  with  the  springs  of  action,  that  their  views 
have  held  Western  man  more  firmly  than  any  other 
system.  The  first  point  to  notice  in  looking  at  the 
teaching,  is  that  it  was  given  to  a  very  severely 
selected  group  of  persons.  The  early  disciples  were 
one  of  the  hardest-weeded  bodies  of  men  that  ever 
existed,  like  the  Huguenots  or  the  Quakers  ;  ready 
perception,  hearty  conscientiousness,  and  a  will  to  do 
right  at  all  costs  were  the  first  qualifications,  and 
incessant  persecution  from  various  sides  weeded  out 
all  those  who  had  no  deep  root  of  character.  To  such 
a  body  temporary  communism  was  almost  a  need  of 
existence  at  starting ;  all  the  causes  and  characters 
which  would  ordinarily  make  it  a  failure  were  weeded 
out,  and  such  a  highly  selected- group  might  safely 
benefit  by  a  system  which  depended  on  self-abnega- 
tion. But  so  soon  as  the  Church  spread,  no  trace  of 
communism  remained  ;  and  even  in  general  altruism 
the  injunctions  referred  only  to  the  Church  and  not 
to  the  world.  The  teaching  was  "  Bear  ye  one 
another's  burdens "  ;  not,  bear  the  burdens  of  the 
Roman  rabble,  but  only  those  of  the  stringently 
weeded  community.  The  one  saying  which  survived 
most  strongly  of  all  the  Gospel  teaching,  and  is 
repeated  oftenest,  is,  "  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given, 
and  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even 
that  which  he  seemeth  to  have."  The  full  benefit  of 
capacity  and  its  utmost  gains,  and  the  direst  losses  of 
incapacity,  are  the  main  principle  that  is  inculcated. 

In  another  point  of  view  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son  is  sometimes  felt  to  inculcate  the  ignoring  of 
failure  in  life,  and  the  permitting  of  follies  to  have  no 


PRESENT   CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.    25 

effect  on  the  position  of  a  person.  The  prodigal  son 
among  us  is  too  often  allowed  to  go  on  draining  the 
resources  on  which  his  brethren  rightfully  have  a 
claim.  But  the  father  in  the  parable,  who  had  divided 
the  family  property  already,  was  not  intending  to  give 
anything  more  to  the  prodigal,  however  penitent  he 
might  be  ;  forgiveness  might  be  his,  but  the  other 
brother  was  reassured  at  once  by  the  formal  declara- 
tion, "  All  that  I  have  is  thine."  The  greatest  peni- 
tence, and  the  fullest  forgiveness  after  it,  will  not  give 
the  prodigal  a  farthing  beyond  those  rights  which  he 
has  already  misused. 

Another  appeal  has  been  made,  to  a  comparison 
with  nature,  in  favour  of  communism.  It  is  asked 
why  we  should  be  struggling  like  the  carnivora, 
instead  of  peacefully  browsing  in  amity  like  herbivora. 
But  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  intense  example 
of  competition  than  that  among  the  cattle.  Look  at  the 
skeleton  of  a  bull,  and  see  how  every  rib  is  broadened 
out  into  an  armour  plating  for  its  vitals,  each  rib 
lapping  over  the  other,  so  that  no  opening  can  be 
found  for  the  point  of  its  adversary's  horn.  None  but 
those  thus  proof  against  goring  have  ever  survived 
the  desperate  struggle  of  the  strongest.  In  place  of 
the  artificial  paddocks,  where  man  has  placed  a  single 
bull  to  lord  the  herd,  look  at  the  tragedy  of  the  wild 
cattle,  where  the  dispossessed  chief  of  the  Chillingham 
breed  mopes  apart  in  sullen  anger,  a  Saturn  dethroned 
and  banished  by  the  Jupiter  who  now  leads  the  race. 
Then  reflect  how  competition  is  more  bitter  and  more 
intense  in  the  bovine  commune  than  among  any 
individualistic  carnivora. 

The  communistic  view  appears  to  tend  to  fatalism. 


26  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

This  is  practically  seen  for  instance  in  Tolstoi's 
Peace  and  War,  where  the  gigantic  movements  of  the 
French  and  Russian  hosts  are  looked  on  as  inherent 
in  the  millions  of  people,  and  not  originating  in  the 
leaders.  And  the  habit  of  looking  to  the  commune 
as  the  source  of  action  will  naturally  tend  toward  a 
sense  of  the  impossibility  of  altering  the  determination 
of  a  whole  people,  and  the  powerlessness  of  the 
individual  against  such  forces.  Now  nothing  more 
surely  undermines  activity  and  initiative  than  a 
fatalistic  view.  It  saps  the  whole  springs  of  action, 
and  destroys  the  spirit  of  advance  and  improvement 
In  this  aspect  therefore  we  again  see  how  injurious 
the  communistic  ideal  is  to  solid  character. 

The  recent  growth  of  "  municipalising  "  enterprises 
is  another  outcome  of  this  spirit.  The  principle  of  it 
seems  to  be  to  absorb  any  public  business  which 
appears  profitable,  whether  conveyance,  supplies  of 
material,  or  contracting  for  public  work.  Apart  from 
the  fact  that  only  strong  personal  interest  in  manage- 
ment will  make  such  enterprises  profitable,  there  is 
also  the  inherent  objection  to  the  bad  management 
which  clings  to  the  atrophy  of  mind  of  officials,  as 
such  ;  but  there  is  also  another  serious  influence  upon 
character,  which  we  should  notice.  The  energy  and 
initiative  needed  to  start  and  work  improvements, 
which  is  the  essential  source  of  profit  in  business,  is 
easily  suppressed  or  driven  away.  Many  an  enter- 
prise which  would  succeed  well  is  set  aside  because  of 
the  risks  or  the  trouble  of  starting  it,  many  another  is 
left  alone  owing  to  little  deterring  causes  ;  and  if  the 
great  incentive  of  the  possibility  of  large  profits  on 
some  schemes,  to  compensate  for  the  risks  of  many 


PRESENT  CHANGES   OF   CHARACTER.    27 

failures,  is  cut  away  by  a  municipality  having  the 
right  of  seizure  of  whatever  succeeds,  the  whole  enter- 
prising character  is  cut  down  at  the  roots,  to  the 
immense  injury  of  the  nation  at  large.  Supposing 
that  some  public  enterprise  makes  20  per  cent, 
profit  to  its  shareholders,  the  people  who  use  it  are 
certainly  better  off,  or  they  would  leave  it  alone,  and 
the  profit  is  no  loss  to  the  community,  as  it  merely 
means  so  much  transferred  from  one  pocket  to 
another,  and  none  wasted.  But  if  such  enterprises 
are  choked  at  the  roots  by  fear  of  seizure,  the  whole 
community  suffers.  Who  will  care  to  develop 
suburbs  by  starting  electric  trams  when  the  whole 
can  be  seized  in  twenty-one  years,  so  soon  as  it 
begins  to  repay  the  risks  incurred  ?  This  short- 
sighted grasping  system  has  held  England  back 
behind  most  civilised  countries,  and  been  a  gigantic 
public  loss,  not  only  by  hindering  specific  enterprises, 
but  more  by  thwarting  most  valuable  characteristics. 


CHAPTER   III. 

TRADE   UNIONISM,   ITS   FLOWER  AND   FRUITION. 

WHEN  we  are  continually  assured  that  there  is  a 
new  and  better  way  of  doing  anything,  it  is  only 
reasonable  to  ask  if  anyone  has  tried  it  before.  "  The 
proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating,"  and  if  some 
one  has  eaten  such  a  pudding  before  us,  we  may  be 
saved  from  using  up  good  materials  in  a  bad  concoc- 
tion. Until  now  the  attention  of  historians  has  been 
so  fixed  upon  the  great  military  autocracy  of  Rome, 
that  the  growth  of  trade  unionism  and  socialism 
under  that  government  has  been  overlooked.  Here 
we  will  trace  and  put  together  such  facts  as  seem 
curiously  parallel  to  the  growth  of  modern  unionism ; 
and  which,  when  they  outstep  our  present  position, 
may  serve  to  show  what  further  developments  may  be 
expected  by  us. 

The  first  great  step,  which  bore  centuries  of  bitter 
results,  was  the  favouring  of  the  townsman  as  against 
the  countryman.  The  voter  in  Rome  could  push  laws 
to  his  own  advantage  in  the  hurly-burly  of  the  public 
assembly,  while  the  countryman  was  working  hard  in 
his  furrow  miles  away.  The  conquered  provinces 
were  a  great  temptation  ;  they  had  to  yield  tribute, 
grain  came  pouring  into  Rome,  and  why  should  not 
this  abundance  benefit  the  citizen  by  being  sold  at  a 
low  price  ?     They  forgot  the  countryman.     His  toil 


TRADE   UNIONISM.  29 

was  none  the  less  because  Carthage  or  Sicily  or 
Egypt  were  being  plundered.  But  his  pay  was  much 
the  less  if  his  produce  lost  its  market  value.  The 
cheap  corn  of  Gracchus  was  the  knell  of  the  honest 
agriculturist,  as  Professor  Oman  has  pointed  out. 
The  only  remedy  was  to  try  to  cheapen  production 
in  Italy.  This  was  done  by  giving  up  the  small 
farmer  altogether,  and  running  only  big  estates  by 
slave-labour,  the  human  machine  which  was  to 
Rome  what  machinery  is  to  us.  This  staved  off  the 
evil  somewhat.  But  soon  the  townsman  demanded 
more  and  more,  and  at  last  free  doles  of  corn  were 
given  to  him,  and  agriculture  became  impossible  in 
Italy.  What  tribute-corn  did  to  Italy,  cheap  trans- 
port has  done  to  England.  The  townsman  is  always 
favoured  at  the  cost  of  the  countryman,  and  the 
country  is  being  depopulated.  Not  only  cheap  bread, 
but  doles  of  every  kind — hospitals,  wash-houses, 
music,  games,  libraries — all  are  given  to  the  towns- 
man, while  the  countryman  cannot  possibly  share  in 
such  doles.  A  large  policy  of  equivalent  benefits  to 
the  countryman  would  be  the  only  corrective  to  this 
one-sided  and  deleterious  favouritism.  But  the  votes 
carry  it,  as  they  did  in  Rome. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  the  second  century,  under 
Trajan,  two  little  statements  show  what  was  going 
on.  A  guild  or  trade  union  of  firemen  in  Asia 
Minor  wished  to  be  incorporated  :  but  the  emperor 
forbade,  because  such  trade  guilds  became  political 
centres.  There  must  have  been  some  experience  of 
such  movement  for  it  to  be  anticipated.  The  other 
statement  is  that  the  more  able  and  wealthy  men 
avoided  entering  the  guild  of  permanent  aldermen,  or 


3o  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

curia,  because  of  the  burdens  which  were  thrown  upon 
them.     A   century  later,  about    230  A.D.,  all  trades 
were  organised  into  corporations   or  trades    unions, 
recognised  by  the  government,  instead  of  being  only 
private  societies  as  before.     This  seems  to  have  been 
a  compulsory  unionism  ;  but  there  was  some  difference 
in  class  between  this  trades  unionism  and  our  own. 
In  Rome  the  trades  were  in  the  hands  of  smaller 
men,  and  not  of  large  firms  and  companies  as  much 
as  with  us  ;  and  on  the  other  hand  the  mere  mechanic 
was  usually  a  slave,  this  slave  labour  being  economic- 
ally the  equivalent  of  machinery  in  our  time.     Hence 
the  Roman  trades  unions  were  small  employers  of  the 
status  of  our  plumbers  or  upholsterers,  more  than,  as 
with   us,    a   large    mass   of    crude   labour  organised 
against  all  capital.     They  were  trade  unions,  rather 
than  unions  of  the  mechanics  as  against  the  managers. 
The  compulsory  entry  of  all  the  master  employers 
into  a  union  would  no  doubt  be  a  step  very  welcome 
to  modern  unionism  ;  and  the  compulsory  extension 
of  it,  so  as  to  leave  no  free  labour,  would  be  an  ideal 
condition,  in  which  picketing  would  be  quite  super- 
seded by  legal  compulsion  to  join  the  union.     The 
differences  therefore  were  mainly  such  as  our  trades 
unions  would  desire,  and  aim  at  in  future  ;  in  short 
unionism  by  230  A.D.  was  more  developed  than  it  is 
at  present  with  us. 

But  here  came  in  a  very  difficult  question,  which  is 
before  us  also  whenever  unionism  becomes  dominant 
in  any  trade.  It  is  all  very  well  to  let  unions  pillage 
capital,  or  even  pillage  each  other,  but  can  they  be 
allowed  to  pillage  the  poor  ?  This  at  once  clashes 
with  the  favouring  of  the  proletariat.     It  has  already 


TRADE    UNIONISM.  31 

raised  an  acute  difficulty  in  England.  The  Brick- 
layers' Union  cannot  be  competed  with  from  abroad, 
except  very  slightly  by  means  of  imported  wooden 
houses.  Hence  this  union  has  been  able  to  close  its 
grip  firmly  on  the  throat  of  the  public  ;  it  has  raised 
wages,  and  it  has  cut  down  work  from  eight  hundred 
or  nine  hundred  bricks  laid  daily  to  two  hundred 
and  seventy  or  three  hundred  and  thirty  in  different 
standards  now.  By  raising  the  cost  of  labour  to  about 
three  times  the  amount,  the  cost  of  building  as  a 
whole  must  be  nearly  doubled.  The  dearness  of 
lodging  of  the  poor  is  really  due  to  the  remorseless 
extortion  of  the  bricklayers,  abetted  by  the  extrava- 
gant building  regulations  locally  in  force  in  their 
interest,  to  increase  the  expenditure  on  a  building. 
In  the  country  there  is  disgraceful  overcrowding  for 
lack  of  cottage  accommodation,  and  in  towns  miser- 
able rooms  fetch  high  rents.  The  ground-landlord, 
who  is  so  much  abused,  has  little  to  do  with  this  ;  for 
ground-rents  are  seldom  more  than  a  tenth  of  the 
house  rent  and  taxes.  If  all  land  were  confiscated 
to-morrow  it  would  not  lower  most  rentals  more  than 
a  fraction.  If  the  Bricklayers'  Union  and  all  its 
results  were  abolished,  rentals  would  descend  to 
nearly  half  the  present  amounts. 

If  we  were  to  meet  this  difficulty  in  the  way  that 
Rome  dealt  with  it,  the  Government  would  give  the 
Bricklayers'  Union  an  absolute  monopoly  of  building, 
on  condition  that  dwellings  under  a  certain  value  were 
charged  at  a  third  of  the  cost  of  labour,  that  is  on  the 
old  terms  of  a  full  day's  work  fifty  years  ago,  leaving 
all  later  profits  to  be  gained  from  the  wealthier 
classes.     In  the  present  straits  about  housing  it  is  by 


32  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

no  means  certain  that  this  would  not  be  a  popular 
course. 

In  Rome  the  grain  importers  and  the  bakers  were 
the  two  trades  which  touched  the  proletariat  most 
closely.  And  early  in  the  third  century  these,  and 
probably  other  essential  trades,  were  organised  as 
monopolist  unions,  on  condition  that  the  union  was 
bound  over  to  do  a  certain  amount  of  work  for  the 
poor  at  a  nominal  rate.  Thus  the  wastrel  was 
favoured  and  protected,  with  his  right  to  maintenance ; 
and  all  profits  of  the  business  were  to  be  made  from 
work  done  for  those  who  could  afford  to  pay  for  it. 
This  is  unquestionably  an  ideal  toward  which  a  great 
deal  of  social  legislation  is  tending  at  present.  Rail- 
way companies  and  tramways  are  bound  to  carry 
workmen  at  nominal  rates,  while  all  their  profits  are 
to  be  earned  from  wealth.  So  far  has  this  burden 
been  imposed,  that  the  construction  of  one  railway 
line  at  least  has  been  prevented  by  the  heavy  toll  of 
cheap  transport  which  was  demanded  before  sanction- 
ing it. 

If  the  trade  is  not  in  the  hands  of  a  single  firm  for 
a  whole  district,  like  a  railway  company,  there  arises 
the  problem,  how  is  the  burden  of  cheap  work  for  the 
poor  to  be  distributed  over  the  constituent  firms  ? 
This  was  solved  in  Rome  by  the  union,  which  was  the 
sole  body  recognised  in  law.  Each  member  of  the 
union  was  assessed  by  his  union,  on  the  basis  of  both 
his  capital  and  his  trade  returns,  and  he  had  to  do  so 
much  of  the  cheap  work  in  proportion.  Hence  the 
wealth  of  each  firm  determined  the  amount  of  their 
proletariat  taxation.  If  they  could  withdraw  tem- 
porarily part  of  the  capital  from  the  business,  their 


TRADE    UNIONISM.  33 

assessment  would  be  lighter.  Hence  to  each  person 
the  aim  was  to  work  with  the  smallest  amount  of 
capital,  and  to  remove  from  the  business  all  spare 
capital,  and  invest  it  elsewhere.  This  naturally 
resulted  in  business  being  badly  worked.  The  diffi- 
culty was  met  by  the  law  that  all  capital  once  in  the 
business  could  never  be  withdrawn  ;  and  all  profits — 
and,  later,  all  acquired  wealth — must  be  kept  in  the 
business,  so  that  the  richer  firms  should  do  their  full 
share  of  proletariat  service.  The  results  of  these 
logical  developments  of  unionism  and  help  to  the  pro- 
letariat, were  that  many  withdrew  altogether  from 
unions,  retiring  on  a  small  competence  rather  than 
live  under  such  a  burden,  and  that  there  was  a  general 
decline  of  commerce  and  of  industry. 

Property  having  thus  become  the  gauge  of  responsi- 
bility in  the  union,  the  only  way  to  prevent  desertions 
was  to  declare  that  the  property  was  attached  to  the 
union  permanently,  and  whosoever  acquired  it  did 
so  under  the  implied  covenant  of  supplying  the  share 
of  union  work  out  of  it.  The  result  of  this  law  was 
that  no  one  with  capital  would  join  a  trade  union, 
as  their  whole  property  became  attached  to  the 
union ;  and  poor  persons  were  not  desired  on 
unions,  as  they  could  not  take  up  a  share  of  the 
proletariat  service.  This  condition  was  met  by  the 
law  forcibly  enrolling  capitalists  in  the  unions,  and 
demanding  their  personal  service  as  well  as  the  use 
of  their  capital. 

By  270  A.D.  Aurelian  had  made  unionism  com- 
pulsory for  life  so  as  to  prevent  the  able  men  from 
withdrawing,  to  better  themselves  by  free  work 
individually.     He  also  gave    a  wine  dole,  and  gave 

J-  D 


34  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

bread  in  place  of  corn,  to  save  the  wastrel  the 
trouble  of  baking.  In  the  fourth  century  every 
member,  and  all  his  sons,  and  all  his  property, 
belonged  inalienably  to  the  trades  union.  By 
369  a.D.  all  property  however  acquired  belonged 
to  the  union. 

Yet  still  men  would  leave  all  they  had  to  get  out 
of  the  hateful  bondage,  and  so  the  unpopular  trades 
— such  as  the  moneyers  in  380  A.D.  and  the  bakers 
in  408 — were  recruited  by  requiring  that  everyone 
who  married  the  daughter  of  a  unionist  must  join  his 
father-in-law's  business.  And  thus  "  the  Empire  was 
an  immense  gaol  where  all  worked  not  according  to 
taste  but  by  force,"  as  Waltzing  remarks  in  his  great 
work  Corporations  Professionnelles,  where  the  fore- 
going facts  are  stated. 

There  was  but  one  end  possible  to  this  accumula- 
tion of  move  upon  move,  on  the  false  basis  of  com- 
pulsory trade  unionism,  and  work  under  cost  for  the 
proletariat.  The  whole  system  was  so  destructive  of 
character  and  of  wealth  that  it  ruined  the  empire. 
Slavery  was  by  no  means  the  destruction  of  Rome, 
it  flourished  in  the  centuries  when  the  Government 
was  strongest,  and  diminished  in  advance  of  the  social 
decay.  Vice  was  by  no  means  the  destruction  of 
Rome,  it  was  worst  when  Rome  was  most  powerful 
and  was  lessened  in  the  decline.  The  one  movement 
which  grew  steadily  as  Rome  declined,  and  which 
was  intimately  connected  with  every  stage  of  that 
decline,  was  the  compulsion  of  labour  and  the  main- 
tenance of  the  wastrel  as  a  burden  on  society.  It 
was  that  which  pulled  down  the  greatest  political 
organism,  by  the  crushing  of  initiative  and  character, 


TRADE   UNIONISM.  35 

and  by  the  steady  drain  on  all  forms  of  wealth.  The 
free  Goth  was  the  welcome  deliverer  from  social 
bondage.  This  growth  of  trade  unionism  has  been 
followed  here  as  a  whole,  without  stopping  to  note  other 
effects  of  the  same  type  of  mind,  which  are  also  very 
instructive  to  us.  We  now  turn  back  to  look  at  some 
earlier  developments. 

The  Empire  had  a  long  age  of  internal  peace,  from 
the  accession  of  Vespasian  to  the  rise  of  Severus,  com- 
prising four  or  five  generations.  Men  had  forgotten 
in  Italy  and  the  provinces  what  war  meant,  as  the 
only  troubles  had  been  frontier  fighting.  They  ceased 
to  value  the  strength  of  unity,  and  the  importance  of 
keeping  the  empire  bound  together.  The  sayings 
attributed  to  Gallienus  in  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  cannot  be  looked  on  as  merely  wild  vagaries, 
contrary  to  all  the  public  opinion  around  him.  Had 
no  one  else  advocated  the  subdivision  of  the  empire, 
he  would  never  have  continued  to  jest  about  not 
needing  the  produce  of  Gaul  or  of  Syria.  Such 
phrases  must  have  been  familiar  among  a  little- Italy 
party,  of  whom  Gallienus  was  the  agent  and  mouth- 
piece. And  such  a  situation  will  help  to  explain  his 
conduct  regarding  the  captivity  of  Valerian  his  father 
in  Persia.  A  glance  at  old  Valerian  shows  him  to 
have  been  a  rigid  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  like 
Galba  or  Nerva.  And,  when  he  was  captured,  the 
little-Italy  party  who  had  hold  of  Gallienus  were 
relieved  rather  than  otherwise.  Had  George  III  been 
captured  by  the  French,  probably  George  IV  and 
Charles  James  Fox  would  not  have  been  very  anxious 
for  his  return. 

The  policy   of  the   party  seems   to  have    been   to 

D  2 


36  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

encourage  each  province  to  start  a  separate  govern- 
ment under  its  local  ruler,  in  touch  with  the  Roman 
Government,  but  with  recognised  independence. 
Britain  was  separated,  and  was  only  reunited  to  the 
empire  at  later  times  for  short  periods  ;  Postumus, 
Victorinus,  Tetricus,  Carausius,  Allectus,  Constantius, 
Magnentius,  Magnus  Maximus,  Jovinus,  all  ruled 
without  any  check  from  Italy.  Syria  was  separated 
with  such  good  will  that  the  coinage  for  Zenobia  was 
struck  at  the  Imperial  mint  in  Alexandria.  In  all, 
nineteen  independent  rulers  are  enumerated  in  this 
reign ;  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  reunite  the  pro- 
vinces. There  were  gains  in  such  a  course  ;  the 
heavy  charge  on  Italy  of  keeping  a  great  army  was 
lessened  ;  the  risks  of  civil  war  seemed  to  be  reduced, 
when  each  province  was  not  tempted  to  set  up  its 
own  ruler  for  the  whole  empire  ;  and  local  feelings 
and  variations  could  have  free  scope.  It  might  be 
thought  that  three  centuries  of  rule  had  fitted  the 
provinces  to  hold  their  own  in  the  world,  and  to  be 
ruled  independently.  The  result  of  the  experiment 
in  devolution,  or  home  rule  all  round,  was  a  time  of 
such  anarchy,  misery  and  loss,  as  had  not  been 
known  since  a  unified  civilisation  had  existed  in  those 
lands. 

After  the  immediate  catastrophes  had  been  somewhat 
rectified  by  succeeding  emperors,  Aurelian  took  up  the 
great  task  of  reuniting  the  whole  empire.  He  carried 
this  out  victoriously  ;  Tetricus  from  Gaul  and  Zenobia 
from  Syria  adorned  his  triumph.  But  Rome  was 
bitter  at  such  a  policy.  A  furious  rebellion  broke 
out,  nominally  called  the  revolt  of  the  mint ;  that  it 
was  a  great  social   movement  was  seen  by  Gibbon, 


TRADE   UNIONISM.  37 

though  he  confesses  that  it  is  mysterious  how  three 
senators,  most  of  the  senatorial  families,  and  multi- 
tudes of  minor  people  were  involved  in  it.  The 
fighting  was  so  severe  that  five  thousand  of  Aurelian's 
trained  army  were  killed.  That  the  mint  workmen 
took  part  in  it  is  certain  :  but  probably  the  mint  was 
adopted  as  headquarters  of  the  movement  owing  to 
its  strength.  All  this  shows  that,  so  far  from  the 
great  victories  making  Aurelian  popular  in  Rome, 
they  were  most  bitterly  opposed.  The  only  ground 
for  this  must  be  that  a  very  strong  party  clung  to  the 
little-Italy  policy,  and  hated  Aurelian  in  consequence. 
This  movement  gives  good  ground  for  interpreting 
the  policy  of  Gallienus  in  the  way  we  have  done 
above,  as  being  a  great  party  policy  and  not  merely 
an  imperial  freak. 

Within  less  than  a  generation  later  came  the  vast 
socialist  decree  of  Diocletian,  regulating  all  prices 
and  wages  throughout  the  empire.  A  maximum 
value  was  fixed  for  every  kind  of  food — grain,  wine, 
oil,  meat,  fish,  vegetables  and  fruit.  Hence  such  food 
would  never  be  produced  where  the  natural  conditions 
prevented  a  profit  within  this  maximum  price  ;  nor 
would  it  be  transported  beyond  the  distance  within 
which  the  maximum  yielded  a  profit.  Whole  districts 
must  have  been  cut  off  from  different  kinds  of 
supply  by  such  legislation.  Meanwhile  the  wages  of 
labourers,  of  artizans,  and  of  professions  were  all 
equally  regulated,  so  that  the  best  men  could  never 
have  their  superior  ability  rewarded.  The  prices  of 
skins  and  leather,  of  all  clothing,  and  of  jewellery 
were  likewise  defined. 

The  consequence  must  have  been  that  the  losses  in 


144 


38  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

bad  years  of  supply,  owing  to  weather  and  other 
circumstances,  must  have  fallen  wholly  on  the  pro- 
ducer, who  might  be  ruined  by  the  whole  brunt  of 
the  loss,  instead  of  being  partly  compensated  by  a 
rise  in  prices  which  taxed  the  whole  body  of  users. 
No  wonder  that  after  such  a  law  the  whole  empire 
plunged  ever  deeper  into  poverty  and  confusion.  The 
coinage  depreciated  even  more  rapidly  than  before ; 
and  the  economic  distress  of  such  a  fixed  system  with 
a  falling  currency  must  have  been  overwhelming. 
Such  were  the  results  of  one  of  the  great  socialistic 
attempts  to  remedy  the  course  of  events  by  artificial 
legislation. 

We  thus  see  how  by  the  establishment  of  unionism, 
the  feeding  of  paupers,  the  devolution  of  the  empire, 
and  the  legislation  on  prices  and  wages,  the  socialistic 
policy  brought  to  naught  the  greatest  social  organism 
that  had  yet  appeared  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

REVOLUTION   OR  EVOLUTION  ? 

THOSE  persons  who  are  unaccustomed  to  consider 
the  great  effects  which  flow  from  a  continuous  action 
of  small  causes,  are  too  liable  to  suppose  that  a  large 
result  can  only  be  obtained  by  a  violent  and  immediate 
action.  They  suppose  that  only  some  mighty  impulse 
can  change  the  face  of  affairs  ;  they  pray  that  the 
mountains  be  rent,  and  look  to  the  earthquake 
and  the  tempest,  not  thinking  that  it  is  the  still  small 
voice  that  really  directs.  They  forget  that  it  is  the 
humble  earthworms  that  plough  the  land,  and  the 
invisible  bacteria  that  destroy  nations  and  alter  the 
face  of  politics. 

Ignoring  the  far-reaching  after-effects  of  action, 
men  are  led  to  over-do  all  the  changes  which  they 
attempt  to  carry  out  by  direct  and  immediate  means. 
This  is  like  a  child  who  asks  to  have  its  hand  cut  off 
because  its  finger  aches. 

The  bad  effect  of  sudden  and  violent  changes  may 
best  be  observed  in  our  own  history.  The  great 
changes  of  the  Civil  War  left  England  without  any 
checks  on  the  violence  of  parties.  The  King  and 
Lords  had  been  abolished,  and  the  Commons  ruled 
alone.  The  fierce  factions  of  the  Presbyterians  and 
Independents  would  have  wrecked  the  country,  had 
not  a  ruler  come  forward  far  more  arbitrary  than  the 


40  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

one  already  rejected.  Charles  had  looked  over  the 
wall  when  he  tried  to  arrest  five  members,  but 
Cromwell  stole  the  horse  outright  when  he  dismissed 
the  parliament  by  armed  force.  Pride's  Purge  was  a 
greater  violation  of  popular  liberties  than  anything 
done  by  Tudor  or  Stuart ;  and  the  effect  of  half  a 
generation  of  such  violence  was  that  the  nation  was 
heartily  glad  to  get  back  a  worse  king  than  the  one 
they  had  beheaded.  Cromwell's  great  service  was, 
that  he  saved  England  from  a  fanatical  and  factious 
House  of  Commons,  by  exercising  monarchical  pre- 
rogatives which  Charles  never  dared  to  assert.  The 
needs  of  the  time  drove  him,  as  a  capable  man,  to  act 
for  the  highest  good  outside  the  law.  When  we  hear 
a  faction  lauding  Cromwell  now,  it  may  be  overlooked 
that  he  made  short  work  of  Fifth  Monarchy  men  and 
other  extremists  ;  and  that  the  great  struggle  of  mind 
to  him  was  the  dire  necessity  of  crushing  the  factions, 
and  of  using  that  compulsion  which  he  clearly  saw 
was  the  only  alternative  to  anarchy.  The  bitter 
persecuting  spirit  of  the  factions  was  far  more  violent 
than  any  course  of  action  which  preceded  or  followed 
their  rule.  Neither  Charles  I  nor  Charles  II  touched 
the  private  religious  actions  of  the  people ;  but  the 
factions  proscribed  even  the  private  use  of  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer.  The  subsequent  Five-mile  Act 
regulating  public  meetings  for  worship  was  mild 
compared  with  the  domiciliary  visitations  in  search  of 
the  Prayer  Book  in  1645.  But  for  the  visits  of  the 
parliamentary  soldiery,  breaking  into  chapels  and 
putting  their  swords  to  the  breasts  of  the  kneeling 
communicants,  there  would  never  have  been  the 
milder  dispersions  of  the  Restoration.     But  for  the 


REVOLUTION  OR  EVOLUTION?   41 

bitter  persecution  of  the  so-called  Malignants,  and 
the  deprivation  of  the  clergy  throughout  the  country 
by  the  parliament,  there  would  never  have  been  the 
milder  reversion  of  Bartholomew's  Day,  1662.  In 
every  point  the  violent  changes  of  constitution 
wrought  more  tyranny  and  more  personal  hardship 
than  was  even  caused  by  the  revulsion  which  followed. 

In  France  the  same  effect  was  seen.  The  Revolu- 
tion probably  caused  more  bloodshed  and  more 
personal  misery  in  ten  years,  than  the  old  regime  had 
done  in  a  century.  England  has  paid  twenty-five 
millions  a  year  for  a  century  past  as  interest  on  the 
debt  incurred  for  crushing  Napoleon. 

Another  result  should  be  noted  with  care.  A  great 
popular  ferment  with  a  diminution  of  constitutional 
control,  must  result  in  establishing  a  military 
despotism  as  the  lesser  evil  for  the  country.  Caesar, 
Aurelian,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  all  arose  from  the 
popular  party,  as  the  necessary  substitutes,  by 
arbitrary  action,  for  the  constitutionalism  which  had 
been  abolished.  In  the  place  of  the  legally  regulated 
courses,  more  or  less  unsuitable  and  corrupted,  it 
proved  absolutely  necessary  when  they  were  abolished 
to  have  some  other  supreme  authority  with  power  to 
enforce  obedience. 

We  are  not  concerned  at  this  point  to  consider  the 
relative  right  or  wrong  of  the  various  parties  just 
mentioned  ;  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter. 
The  lesson  is  that  a  violent  and  rapid  change  of 
constitution  leads  to  worse  evils  than  those  which  it 
is  sought  to  remedy.  Every  existing  order  of  things, 
however  imperfect  or  bad,  must  have  a  certain  balance 
of  parts  or  it  could   not  continue.     And  when  that 


42  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

balance  is  destroyed  the  results  can  seldom  be  fore- 
seen. It  is  exactly  the  same  in  nature ;  when  any 
species  of  animal  is  exterminated  suddenly — as  by 
firearms — the  far-reaching  consequences  of  its  dis- 
appearance cannot  be  anticipated  ;  other  species  will 
increase  or  disappear,  and  even  vegetable  life  will  be 
modified. 

The  phrase  therefore  of  a  "  radical  reform,"  or 
briefly  "  radicalism,"  is  in  defiance  of  natural  science 
and  of  historical  experience  ;  it  denies  the  principle 
of  gradual  evolution  in  the  development  of  institutions 
and  of  character.  A  small  amount  of  experience  of 
different  types  is  enough  to  show  its  fallacy,  for 
radicals  say  that  "  travelling  abroad  always  spoils  a 
good   radical." 

In  order  to  avoid  violent  change  it  is  needful  to 
allow  free  scope  for  gradual  change.  The  greatest 
catastrophes  may  be  caused  by  the  accumulation  of 
small  forces  ;  when  a  tiny  stream  becomes  dammed 
by  a  landslip  it  may  form  a  lake,  which  in  bursting 
will  devastate  a  whole  valley.  So  when  the  gradual 
movement  of  a  people  is  checked,  and  an  artificial 
condition  is  enforced  by  laws,  the  breaking  down  of 
such  restrictions  will  cause  wholesale  disaster.  Had 
the  Romans  allowed  free  immigration  of  Gothic 
settlers  there  would  never  have  been  the  Gothic  con- 
quest of  Italy.  Were  the  Californians  and  Australians 
to  allow  a  free  immigration  of  Japanese,  under  fair 
and  equal  laws,  they  would  not  have  to  fear  a 
squadron  demanding  justice  in  their  ports.  The 
necessity  of  violent  changes  is  therefore  always  the 
fault  of  those  who  prevent  gradual  changes  to  fit  new 
conditions.     If  the   House  of  Commons  tries  again 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION  ?       43 

the  experiment  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  by  force 
or  subterfuge  abrogates  the  second  chamber,  it  will  be 
largely  due  to  the  House  of  Lords  refusing  changes 
in  its  mode  of  action.  An  Upper  House  which 
elected  a  legislative  committee,  like  the  election  of 
Scotch  and  Irish  Peers,  would  be  in  a  far  stronger 
position.  The  House  of  Commons  at  present  is  too 
much  like  an  elephant  picking  up  pins  ;  and  if  the 
public  become  so  much  disgusted  with  its  incapacity 
for  business  that  at  some  crisis  they  throw  the  reins 
of  power  to  an  able  man  like  Kitchener,  it  will  be 
largely  due  to  the  fossilisation  of  the  Rules  of  Pro- 
cedure. A  Lower  House  which  allotted  its  time 
strictly  according  to  the  value  of  its  votes  of  supply, 
or  of  the  interests  involved — which  registered  its 
decisions  instantly,  as  by  the  electric  signals  which 
are  now  found  in  every  hotel,  and  which  employed 
diagrams  in  debate  by  means  of  the  lantern  and 
screen  which  are  now  found  in  every  school — would 
stand  a  better  chance  of  coping  with  its  business  in  a 
creditable  manner.  The  fault  of  violent  change,  and 
all  its  damaging  consequences,  rests  in  the  first  place 
on  those  who  resist  gradual  change. 

It  is  therefore  needful  to  leave  the  way  open  for 
gradual  changes.  In  every  new  law,  the  changes  of 
circumstance  which  are  likely  to  arise  should  be 
anticipated,  by  leaving  the  way  open  for  them  to 
begin  to  act  gently  and  gradually.  The  principle  of 
fixed  fines  (based  on  income  tax),  regardless  of  any 
reflection  on  character,  for  various  infractions  of  a 
civil  law  (or  even  of  some  criminal  laws)  should  be 
always  open,  so  that,  as  necessities  arise,  the  prevalence 
of  such  fines  would  call  attention  to  the  need  of  some 


44  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

change.  An  excellent  system  has  been  found  in 
allowing  a  department  a  large  latitude  in  interpreting 
a  law,  or  a  dispensing  power  in  administering  it ;  and 
this  system  might  well  be  extended  so  far  as  it  was 
not  seriously  abused  by  favouritism.  Another  mode 
of  change  is  to  permit  a  variety  of  types  in  different 
places,  as  in  local  administration,  and  then  allow  a 
large  latitude  for  the  adoption  of  any  type  found  to 
work  well  in  another  place.  This  is  partly  reached  by 
varying  bye-laws ;  but  this  might  well  be  extended 
higher  in  the  scale,  and  with  local  liberty  to  adopt 
any  bye-law  already  sanctioned  elsewhere.  The  ways 
would  thus  be  open  for  gradual  movements,  which 
could  extend  until  they  produced  such  pressure  on 
the  larger  and  more  organic  laws  as  to  cause  a  serious 
legislative  step. 

We  will  now  turn  to  observe  the  far-reaching  actual 
and  probable  effects  of  various  laws,  which  at  first 
might  seem  quite  inadequate  to  cause  such  changes. 
Some  years  have  passed  since  the  graduation  of 
death-duties,  and  we  can  begin  to  see  the  effects. 
The  simple  action  of  a  tax,  without  any  compulsion, 
has  produced  a  profound  change  in  a  family  system 
which  centuries  or  thousands  of  years  had  left  un- 
altered. The  notorious  clinging  to  power  and  money 
among  the  aged,  has  given  way  before  the  screw  of  the 
State.  The  custom  which  left  the  control  of  large 
estates  to  men  generally  between  fifty  and  eighty  years 
of  age,  and  hampered  their  development  by  the  dying 
hand,  has  largely  yielded  to  the  Indian  custom,  of  the 
division  of  property  among  sons  on  their  marriage  or 
entry  on  public  life.  It  is  becoming  habitual  for  a 
father  to  establish  his  sons  with  the  family  property, 


REVOLUTION    OR    EVOLUTION  ?       45 

and  only  to  retain  such  a  portion  of  the  estate  as  he 
may  wish  to  fill  his  declining  activities.  This  is  a 
very  beneficial  change,  though  by  no  means  a  grateful 
one  to  the  Exchequer  which  has  brought  it  about.  In 
lesser  properties  the  same  action  occurs ;  a  father 
will  buy  an  annuity  for  himself,  and  distribute  the 
remaining  capital,  each  son  being  at  liberty  either  to 
place  his  portion  at  compound  interest,  so  as  to 
replace  at  the  probable  date  of  his  father's  death  the 
full  amount  which  he  would  have  received  otherwise, 
or  else  to  trust  to  replacing  the  amount  when  he  may 
be  at  his  most  remunerative  age. 

Not  only  is  this  a  great  social  change,  with  far- 
reaching  consequences  in  the  management  of  property, 
but  it  will  also  act  in  other  lines.  When  a  man  deals 
with  his  property  in  the  unchecked  privacy  of  a  will, 
he  can  neglect  the  pressure  of  personality  of  his 
children  in  favour  of  the  sentiment  of  leaving  a  power- 
ful family  name  in  perpetuity.  But  primogeniture 
must  more  or  less  succumb  before  the  obvious  per- 
sonal claims  of  those  who  are  joining  in  the  daily  life. 
It  requires  not  only  a  flinty  heart  but  also  a  brazen 
face,  to  leave  younger  sons  penniless  when  personally 
distributing  the  means  of  ensuring  the  happiness  and 
the  amenities  of  life.  Hence  it  is  probable  that  estates 
will  be  much  more  sub-divided,  and  sons  encouraged 
to  continue  to  live  on  corners  of  the  paternal  acres. 
In  short  it  will  be  a  step  toward  the  French  infinitesimal 
splitting  of  property. 

This  again  will  act  in  a  fundamental  manner  on  our 
colonising  ability.  Primogeniture  has  made  us  a  colo- 
nisingrace ;  no  system  is  so  perfect  for  ensuring  a  supply 
of  fit  colonists.     When  each  wealthy  house  in  the  land 


46  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

educated  two  or  three  sturdy  sons,  with  every  benefit 
of  health  and  knowledge,  and  then  sent  them  out  to 
form  new  centres,  with  a  small  capital  to  start  with, 
and  a  reserve  of  help  at  home  for  any  dire  emergencies, 
the  most  perfect  colonising  machine  had  been  evolved. 
Without  these  conditions  England  could  never  have 
filled  other  continents  as  she  has.  When  sons  stay 
at  home  on  portions  of  the  old  estate,  and  have  not 
enough  wealth  for  the  high  training  of  their  families, 
all  this  colonising  power  will  be  at  an  end.  France 
cannot  colonise  because  her  domestic  system  does  not 
produce  this  type  of  man,  fitted  in  person  and  in  con- 
dition to  take  up  such  a  life.  Our  high  death-duties 
are  a  certain  way  to  stop  educated  colonisation. 

Another  change  is  also  seen  resulting  from  these 
duties.  England,  more  than  other  lands,  was  rich  in 
private  treasure  houses  of  precious  things — pictures, 
statuary,  libraries,  and  other  collections.  These  repre- 
sented a  large  amount  of  capital  locked  up,  but  it 
yielded  a  rich  interest  in  the  home  education  of  the 
upper  classes,  in  redeeming  them  from  the  dull, 
unimaginative,  coarse,  or  sordid  lives  of  wealthy 
classes  in  some  other  lands.  So  long  as  a  duty  only 
equal  to  a  few  months'  or  a  year's  interest  was  levied, 
the  succession  was  not  too  burdensome,  and  the  state 
reaped  a  steady  small  return.  But  when  the  posses- 
sion of  such  means  of  amenity  involves  at  each  genera- 
tion a  crushing  tax  on  the  productive  part  of  an 
estate,  they  must  be  sacrificed.  The  collections  are 
vanishing  to  other  lands,  where  such  short-sighted 
policy  is  unknown,  and  England  will  be  left  bare.  A 
far  more  profitable  policy  would  have  been  to  exempt 
all  artistic  or  historical  collections  from  death-duties, 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION?       47 

if  they  were  thrown  open  to  the  public  for  a  certain 
number  of  days  in  each  year.  They  would  thus  have 
become  partly  public  museums,  provided  free  of  all 
cost  to  the  surrounding  districts. 

Another  serious  consideration  is  that  10  or  15  per 
cent,  or  even  20  per  cent,  in  case  of  bequests  for  public 
purposes,  is  taken  off  accumulated  national  capital 
and  thrown  into  yearly  income.  The  estate  duty  is 
incessantly  eating  up  the  national  reserves,  and  using 
them  for  current  expenses.  We  should  call  any 
family  which  did  this  shameless  spendthrifts,  yet 
this  is  the  immoral  fashion  of  our  taxation. 

The  effect  of  income  tax  is  one  of  the  most  serious 
economic  subjects,  because  it  directly  touches  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth.  There  is  little  objection  to  income 
tax  for  emergencies  of  war,  because  if  merely  nominal 
{id.  in  the  pound)  during  peace,  the  true  amount  tax- 
able will  be  well  known,  and  a  sudden  increase  will  be 
truly  collected  and  will  not  have  distinct  economic 
effects  if  only  used  for  a  year  or  two.  But  treating 
direct  tax  on  incomes  as  a  large  source  of  revenue 
has  very  important  effects  on  a  commercial  nation. 
A  tax  as  high  as  is.  in  the  pound  is  practically  a  tax 
on  all  English  enterprise  as  compared  with  foreign. 
If  a  mill  can  be  run  at  Calais  to  produce  non-dutiable 
articles,  free  of  income  tax  on  its  dividends,  while  a 
mill  at  Dover  pays  5  per  cent,  tax  on  its  dividends, 
that  constitutes  a  discrimination  o#5  per  cent,  against 
the  English  manufacturer's  capital.  The  outcome  of 
the  whole  is  that  all  shares  of  English  companies  will 
stand  permanently  at  5  per  cent,  lower  value  than  the 
shares  of  foreign  companies.  Or  in  other  words  £4 
interest  will  have  to  be  paid  by  an  English  company 


JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

for  ^95  raised  by  debenture,  while  the  foreign  com- 
pany wiU  raise    £  ioo  for  the  same  interest.    The 
immediate  result  is  that  investments  will  increa- 
be  made  in  fo  i  e  g  a  g :  •  ernments  and  companies,  whose 
dividends  are  payable  afooady  instead  of  in  London. 
This  is  not  merely  an  evasion  of  tax,  but  it  is  per- 
fectly legal  if  the  dividends  are  spent  abroad.     N  o  one 
need  pay  tax  on  any  cost  of  foreign  travel  or  residence 
if  they  draw  the  money  from  foreign  sources,  and  do 
not  let  it  be  trapped  in  London.      Thus  there  will  be 
an  ever  increasing  demand  for  purely  foreign  invest- 
ment, according  to  the  amount  of  tax  on  the  invest- 
ments in  England.     If  the  proposal  was  carried  out  to 
tax  all  investments  much  higher  as  "unearned  in- 
come, ruld  cripple  all  English  manufacture  for 
lack  of  the  capital,  which  would  be  driven  abroad  to 
e .- ;.■.•-•-:  :..x       It   might  be  thought  that  other 
governments  will  come  into  line,  and  tax  equally  with 
ours  ;  but  if  they  se  e  .heir  own  commercial  advantage 
they  will  b;  loth    to   put  this  bar  on  English 
capital  flowing  into  their    land   to   gain    freedom. 
Even  if   France    and    Germany  did  as  do,    it 
might  be  w            rth  while  for  Monaco  to  become 
the  financial  centre  of  Europe  by  having  no  income 
tax   on  companies  centred  thr          The    recent  De 
Beers  decision  illustrates  this  very  dea           A  com- 
pa                          rk  abroad,  and  its  investors  largely 
abroad,  is  taxed  or!  all  its  income  because  it  uses  a 
few  square  yards  of  space  in  London  as  an  office. 
Obvious.            J  not  remain.     London  will  no  longer 
be  the  centre  of  commercial  work  of  the  world  if 
5  per  cent,  or  perhaps  io  per  cent  is  the  rrice  to 
be  paid  by  all  who  use  it   No  company  will  remain  in 


REVOLUTION    OR    EVOLUTION  ?       49 

England  that  is  not  fixed  by  its  works  being  here, 
and  all  those  who  are  fixed  here  will  work  at  a  per- 
manent disadvantage  compared  to  the  foreigner.  It 
is  doubtless  thought  that  the  large  income  yielded  by 
the  interest  on  the  national  debt  is  a  safe  and  easy 
subject  of  taxation  ;  Italy  indeed  raises  20  per  cent, 
income  tax  on  its  debt  interest.  But  this  tax  is  purely 
nominal,  as  it  is  discounted  in  the  price  of  stock,  and 
such  a  government  is  merely  paying  with  the  left  hand 
what  it  takes  with  the  right.  The  case  is  seen  clearly 
in  Italian  stock  which  stands  at  20  per  cent,  lower 
value  than  it  otherwise  would  ;  that  is  to  say,  that 
Italy  pays  say  £4  for  the  loan  of  £80  now,  instead 
of  for  the  loan  of  ,£100  which  it  would  receive  if  this 
tax  was  not  imposed.  The  same  is  equally  true  of 
the  tax  as  applied  to  government  salaries ;  it  cannot 
be  evaded,  and  therefore  it  is  merely  a  diminution  of 
the  salary,  or  a  depreciation  of  the  quality  of  men 
obtained  for  the  nominal  salary.  A  government  can- 
not tax  its  own  payments  by  any  financial  jugglery. 
Of  course  a  government  can  cheat  like  a  private 
person  ;  promise  a  certain  payment,  and  then  break 
its  word,  and  pay  less  by  a  tax.  But  that  is  only  a 
transient  profit  raised  by  the  sale  of  its  character,  and 
is  not  a  permanent  bargain. 

Another  effect  of  income  tax  will  be  seen  if  the 
proposed  higher  grading  of  incomes  is  carried  out. 
The  same  changes  that  we  have  traced  owing  to  the 
death  duties  will  be  produced  by  the  life  duties. 
Property  will  be  sub-divided  wherever  possible. 
Every  child  will  have  a  trust  created  for  its  benefit, 
every  member  of  a  family  will  have  a  separate 
income,   every    large    estate    will   be    nominally  the 

J-  E 


50  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

property  of  a  group  of  independent  persons — a  family- 
club.  This  will  tend,  like  the  death  duties,  toward 
equal  shares,  instead  of  the  parent  hive  system  of 
primogeniture  ;  and  it  likewise  marks  the  end  of 
educated  colonising.  The  effect  of  this  may  be  good 
for  family  life,  but  it  will  be  disastrous  commercially. 
There  will  no  longer  be  the  large  capitalists  who  can 
take  the  risks  of  great  enterprises.  To  raise  a  large 
floating  capital  for  great  undertakings  will  require  the 
co-operation  of  so  many  small  capitalists,  that  it  will 
not  be  worth  while  for  any  one  investor  to  give  time 
to  the  affair.  The  lack  of  personal  concern  and 
interest,  and  the  cost  of  dealing  with  widely  collected 
capital,  will  all  be  a  detriment  to  enterprises  of  large 
extent. 

But  the  most  disastrous  as  well  as  immoral  kind  of 
taxation  will  be  that  proposed  as  additional  upon  all 
permanent  investments,  under  the  guise  of  "unearned 
income."  It  is  a  fatally  easy  screw  for  a  government 
to  put  on  ;  but  the  effect  of  it  will  be  to  penalise  all 
British  manufacture  in  competition  with  foreign  pro- 
ductions. All  that  we  have  noticed  about  the  effect 
of  a  5  per  cent,  tax  will  apply  far  more  rapidly  and 
decisively  if  a  10  per  cent,  tax  should  be  put  on. 
Shippers  would  sail  under  another  flag  and  transfer 
their  offices  of  registration  ;  manufacturers  would  pass 
to  a  tax-free  country ;  and  a  larger  proportion  of 
persons  living  on  fixed  income  would  spend  it  abroad. 
Beside  the  material  disadvantages  of  such  high 
taxation  on  enterprise,  it  would  be  a  grave  moral 
detriment. 

It  is  too  often  forgotten  that  in  taxation  the 
government  wields  one  of  the  greatest  means  of  moral 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION  ?       51 

education.  What  does  it  say  now  by  its  taxation  ? 
Suppose  a  man  to  have  saved  £100,  and  to  consider 
whether  he  will  spend  it  on  unremunerative  pleasures, 
or  on  useful  public  works.  The  government  says,"  If 
you  will  spend  your  money  on  waste  and  luxury, 
paying  for  useless  and  monstrous  rooms,  making  men 
stand  idle  in  your  hall,  or  decorate  your  extravagant 
food ;  if  you  will  make  women  waste  their  eyes  and 
lives  on  a  fresh  absurdity  of  fashion,  or  sell  their 
souls  ;  or  if  you  will  pay  boys  to  become  ne'er-do- 
weels  on  golf-links — in  short  if  you  will  do  as  much 
mischief  as  possible,  we  will  take  5  per  cent,  of  your 
money.  But  if  you  spend  it  on  benefiting  the  world, 
improving  cultivation,  building  railways,  opening  the 
waste  places  and  making  them  blossom,  we  will  take 
18  per  cent.,  and  leave  you  only  £82  out  of  your 
£100."  That  is  to  say  5  per  cent,  on  the  original 
earning  of  the  capital,  5  per  cent,  tax  on  investment 
income,  and  10  per  cent,  on  death  duties,  as  estimated 
on  large  capital  by  the  Income  Tax  Commission, 
1906.  And  if  the  proposed  higher  taxing  of  so-called 
"  unearned  income  "  were  carried  out,  this  government 
claim  would  rise  to  23  per  cent,  or  even  higher.  In 
all  reason,  after  money  when  earned  has  paid  its  tax  of 
5  per  cent,  it  should  be  free  of  all  further  claims,  at 
least  if  employed  for  public  utility,  and  there  should 
be  no  tax  on  dividends  whatever,  nor  any  death  duties 
on  savings  ;  all  such  taxation  falls  eventually  on  the 
capital  of  the  useful  undertakings,  and  directly 
cripples  the  industry  of  the  country. 

The  only  way  to  escape  the  deadly  effects  of  income 
tax  upon  home  manufactures  and  produce  would  be 
to  lay  a  countervailing  duty  on   all  imports,  and  a 

E  2 


52  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

bounty  on  all  exports.  Then,  and  only  then,  would 
the  manufacturer  or  farmer  here  be  on  exactly  the 
same  footing  as  one  abroad.  Then,  and  only  then, 
would  free  trade  be  really  carried  out.  So  long  as  taxes 
fall  on  home  production  or  home  capital,  which  do 
not  fall  similarly  abroad,  so  long  free  trade  cannot  exist. 

Another  highly  immoral  view  of  taxation  is  that  of 
"  plucking  the  goose  so  that  it  feels  it  least."  Such 
a  maxim  was  appropriate  and  excellent  for  an  oppor- 
tunist minister  of  an  autocratic  sovereign.  But  the 
first  necessity  for  the  political  health  of  a  democracy 
is  that  the  individual  shall  feel  every  tax  ;  such  is  the 
only  way  to  prevent  the  squandering  of  public  money 
by  the  votes  of  ignorant  taxpayers.  It  would  be  very 
wholesome  if  the  national  expenditure  was  presented 
as  a  series  of  personal  bills,  showing  how  much  was 
spent  on  each  department  by  an  average  ,£50,  or 
.£100,  or  £200  householder.  He  would  then  be  as 
much  ashamed  of  the  smallness  of  some  items  as  of 
the  largeness  of  others. 

What  is  needed  in  place  of  the  tax  upon  industry 
is  a  tax  upon  extravagance.  We  are  accustomed  to 
taxes  which  far  exceed  the  prime  cost  upon  tobacco 
and  alcohol  ;  and  other  luxuries  should  also  be 
similarly  taxed.  If  instead  of  taxing  income  (which 
is  often  requisite  for  reasonable  living,  or  else  usefully 
spent  on  improvements  of  the  world),  we  had  the 
luxuries  taxed,  the  only  people  to  complain  (if  the 
change  were  gradual)  would  be  those  who  wasted 
instead  of  using  their  income.  Let  all  ostentation 
be  taxed  very  heavily,  spacious  rooms,  large  numbers 
of  servants,  costly  food*  motor  cars  (not  profession- 
ally needed),  entrance  money   for  amusements,  and 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION  ?       53 

tailors'  and  milliners'  bills  ;  and  then  a  much  smaller 
amount  of  such  extravagance  will  equally  bespeak 
wealth,  and  gain  as  much  social  consideration  as  at 
present.  Such  would  be  a  moral  taxation  in  place 
of  the  present  wholly  immoral  and  indefensible 
system  of  taxing  industry  and  leaving  waste 
unchecked. 

We  will  now  look  to  other  eventual  results  of  small 
continual  action.  The  effect  of  transferring  little  by 
little  the  property  in  Irish  land  to  the  present 
occupiers  has  not  been  sufficiently  noticed.  For  the 
present  generation  such  a  transference  was  merry 
enough  to  the  tenant.  But  when  he  sells  to  another 
tenant  what  is  to  happen  ?  Will  a  future  tenant  enter 
and  gradually  expropriate  the  present  tenant,  by 
treating  him  as  a  landlord?  Certainly  the  present 
tenant  will  not  be  so  foolish  as  to  be  thus  trapped,  he 
will  demand  money  on  the  nail.  How  then  is  the 
future  tenant  to  get  his  capital  to  buy  the  land  ?  In 
most  cases  he  will  have  to  get  it  by  borrowing  on 
mortgage.  And  if  the  government  is  not  prepared  to 
always  keep  open  a  loan  office  for  every  incoming 
tenant  to  the  end  of  time,  a  loan  society  or  company 
must  be  his  resort.  Then  if  he  should  not  pay  this 
rent  to  the  distant  intangible  society,  his  mortgage 
will  be  foreclosed.  In  place  of  a  body  of  landlords, 
and  landlords'  agents  who  could  always  be  personally 
approached,  Ireland  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  a 
landlordism  of  distant  money-lenders  without  souls 
or  feelings,  and  whom  neither  blandishments  nor 
bullets  can  affect. 

The  remedy  for  land  difficulties  and  various  ills, 
that  has  been  so  often  proposed,  namely  the  State 


54  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

ownership  of  the  land,  is  by  no  means  promising. 
The  greatest  objection  that  can  be  flung  at  a  landlord 
is  that  he  is  an  absentee.  No  amount  of  agency,  no 
excellence  in  the  subordinate,  is  thought  to  com- 
pensate for  the  personal  interest,  the  personal  influence 
and  care,  of  a  good  conscientious  landlord  spending 
his  life  among  his  tenants.  Yet  the  State  ownership 
would  be  worse  than  any  absentee  landlord.  The 
agent  would  be  that  of  an  impersonal  government, 
and  responsible  to  nobody  so  long  as  he  fulfilled  a 
certain  set  of  hard  rules.  He  would  have  no  person- 
ality more  or  less  pliable  behind  him,  but  would 
blindly  carry  out  the  general  dictates  of  a  Parliament 
or  a  Revenue  office,  which  neither  knew  nor  cared 
about  any  personal  exceptions  or  local  details.  We 
all  know  the  ways  of  the  Inland  Revenue  already  ; 
the  extortions  which  have  to  be  tediously  reclaimed 
at  a  greater  cost  of  time  than  the  refunded  money  is 
worth ;  the  starving  of  the  Post  Office  in  order  to 
wring  a  profit  of  50  per  cent,  on  the  whole  correspon- 
dence of  the  country  ;  the  various  illegal  demands 
which  have  had  to  be  resisted  by  legal  trial,  and 
appeal  over  appeal,  at  a  ruinous  cost  to  those  who 
will  not  be  cheated  ;  we  see  in  France  and  Italy  the 
atrophy  of  a  railway  system  which  is  ruled  by 
government  officials.  And  yet  unobservant  enthu- 
siasts wish  that  every  field  should  be  under  some 
petty  official  tied  by  red  tape,  and  every  farmer 
bound  by  laws  and  regulations  which  could  never  be 
applied  to  even  a  small  district  without  individual 
hardship.  The  townsman  cannot  be  allowed  to  play 
political  experiments  with  the  largest  industry  of 
England,  of  which  he  is  profoundly  ignorant :  it  must 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION?       55 

rest  with  the  farmer  only,  to  decide  if  he  prefer  to  be 
under  the  Inland  Revenue  or  under  his  landlord.  It 
is  notorious  that  government  lands  are  administered 
more  wastefully  and  less  remuneratively  than  any 
private  property  ;  and  it  would  be  ruinous  to  tie  up 
the  whole  country  to  such  administration.  It  is  use- 
less to  say  that  these  are  mere  abuses  which  must  be 
rectified.  Let  them  be  rectified  in  the  minor  scale 
first,  before  the  system  can  be  applied  in  the  major 
scale.  There  is  no  kind  of  government  in  the  world 
that  would  not  ruin  this  country  if  it  introduced  State 
ownership.  Human  nature  does  not  allow  of  it,  and 
only  ignorance  of  human  nature  could  propose  it. 

Another  large  effect  of  trifles  is  seen  in  the  cumu- 
lative character  of  borrowers.  Mr.  Harold  Cox,  M.P., 
has  reminded  those  who  are  in  favour  of  rather 
confiscatory  proposals,  that  a  loss  of  character  of  a 
public  body,  so  that  their  good  faith  is  not  certain, 
may  easily  mean  that  they  have  to  pay  4  per  cent, 
instead  of  3  per  cent,  for  loans  :  and  hence  that  all 
rents  of  public  works  paid  for  by  loans  will  have  to  be 
33  per  cent,  higher.  This  loss  is  far  more  than  could 
be  gained  by  entire  confiscation  of  ground  values, 
and  entire  ruin  of  all  landlords.  That  this  is  by  no 
means  only  a  future  risk  may  be  seen  in  the  stock 
list  any  day.  India  is  not  entirely  safe  ;  there  are 
risks  of  financial  ruin — by  conquest,  by  ruinous  wars 
against  invasion,  by  ruin  in  insurrection,  by  ejectment, 
or  by  having  to  drop  India  owing  to  a  collapse  of  the 
navy.  Yet  all  these  risks  together  are  thought  to  be 
less  than  the  risk  of  bad  faith  on  the  London  County 
Council.  Their  stock  stands  at  a  lower  price  than 
India  stock.     Such  is  the  large  result  of  the  many 


56  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

little  touches  of  folly  and  extravagance  which  have 
lowered  the  financial  barometer. 

Another  instance  of  remote  changes  is  in  the  effects 
of  the  steam  engine  and  other  cheap  and  rapid  com- 
munication. The  full  extent  of  the  changes  caused 
are  yet  far  from  being  completed.  Externally  the 
great  change  is  that  of  the  equalisation  of  land  values 
for  agriculture  all  over  the  world,  as  the  produce  can 
be  carried  from  land  to  land  for  a  small  part  of  its 
value.  Hence  tropical  lands  with  rapid  growth  and 
high  fertility  will  compete  with  others  ;  and  the 
cheapness  of  labour  there,  owing  to  the  smaller 
requirements  in  a  warmer  climate,  will  react  on  all 
agricultural  wages.  There  will  also  be  a  demand  for 
cheap  labour  to  work  tropical  lands  to  their  full 
extent;  and  the  facility  for  transportation  of  labourers 
will  result  in  constantly  shifting  energetic  people  from 
rather  cooler  climates  into  the  hotter  land  for  a  time, 
and  withdrawing  them  again.  The  same  system  we 
already  carry  out  for  governing  classes  in  India  ;  and 
cheap  transport  will  make  it  possible  for  an  energetic 
race  to  hold  hot  countries  continuously,  without  decay 
due  to  enervation  by  climate,  as  was  the  case  in  all 
earlier  northern  invaders. 

Internally  the  changes  owing  to  cheap  communi- 
cation are  that  land  of  similar  quality  equalises  in 
value ;  and  hence  the  worst  land  will  fall  to  bottom 
price  all  over  the  country,  and  cannot  be  locally  of 
any  higher  value.  Also  it  will  be  difficult  to  get 
people  to  live  in  unpleasant  districts,  as  they  can 
easily  shift  about ;  hence  wages  will  need  to  be  higher 
in  such  districts,  and  therefore  the  land  will  be 
still    lower.     Thus   the    mobility   of  the    inhabitants 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION?       57 

exaggerates  the  variation  of  land  values  already  due 
to  differing  quality.  The  more  bulky  industries  that 
need  cheap  land,  and  not  much  labour,  will  be  fixed 
in  the  unpleasant  districts  ;  and  peasant  proprietors 
will  tend  to  the  worse  land,  as  being  abnormally  low 
in  value.  Regarding  movement  of  population  only, 
as  capable  men  can  move  about  freely  to  get  work 
that  gives  them  full  scope,  the  less  capable  will 
supplant  the  capable  in  all  work  that  they  are  able 
to  do.  Hence  we  shall  no  longer  find  men  of  high 
quality  leading  simple  lives  in  remote  districts.  The 
gain  to  the  whole  community  is  clear,  but  we  lose  one 
of  the  most  interesting  types  of  national  character. 
The  free  and  rapid  transit  in  cities  will  cause  them  to 
be  much  less  crowded  in  one  mass.  At  Chicago  men 
go  to  business  from  five  miles  out  in  five  minutes. 
Our  cumbrous  stoppages  along  the  whole  route  must 
be  entirely  given  up  for  the  outer  districts  of  London. 
What  is  needed  is  a  series  of  new  centres  twenty  to 
thirty  miles  out  of  London  ;  joined,  some  to  the  City, 
some  to  the  West  End,  by  non-stop  trains,  at  sixty 
miles  an  hour.  Such  is  certainly  the  type  of  great 
city  which  will  finally  be  reached — a  county  covered 
with  separate  centres  linked  by  trains  at  the  highest 
speed.  As  we  shall  note  further  on,  the  development 
of  great  equatorial  estates  of  European  powers,  and 
the  growth  of  immense  permanent  armaments  are 
both  the  inevitable  result  of  rapid  communication. 
We  see  thus  how  the  whole  type  of  human  life  and 
conditions  has  been  altered,  and  the  whole  balance  of 
circumstances  readjusted,  by  the  evolution  of  cheap 
motor  power. 

We  have  already  noticed    another   effect    of  this 


58  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

change,  in  the  increase  of  emigration  draining  the 
more  capable  persons  from  England,  and  so  leaving 
a  residue  inferior  in  energy,  initiative  and  self- 
reliance.  This  deterioration  of  the  occupants  of 
England  and  Ireland  is  thus  due  to  the  purely 
mechanical  contrivance  of  a  steam  engine. 

We  have  now  traced  the  large  effects  of  small 
economic  causes,  and  we  see  how  such  apparently 
insignificant  alterations  may  be  far  more  effective  and 
act  far  more  beneficially  than  smashing  the  social 
machine  with  a  sledge  hammer  because  it  does  not 
run  smoothly.  We  will  now  turn  to  look  at  some  of 
the  effects  of  favourite  ideas  of  the  present  time. 

The  compensation  to  workmen  for  accident  seems 
at  first  sight  a  righteous  charge  upon  capital  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  are  injured  in  their  business.  The 
immediate  effect  upon  character  is  to  save  the  care- 
less, thoughtless,  and  incompetent  from  the  results  of 
their  faults  ;  this  at  once  reduces  largely  the  weeding 
and  educational  effects  of  the  bad  qualities.  No  man 
would  ever  have  become  careful  if  he  did  not  find  the 
necessity  of  being  so.  Even  if  a  tendency  to 
malingering  can  be  avoided,  yet  the  teaching  effect  is 
done  away.  It  may  be  thought  that  it  is  better  to 
save  the  individual  from  his  indiscretions  rather  than 
cure  the  race.  Like  most  sentimentalism  it  causes 
more  misery  in  the  long  run.  Another,  and  entirely 
separate,  effect  is  to  prevent  the  employment  of  those 
who  by  age  or  bodily  defect  are  the  more  liable  to 
accident  ;  the  immediate  hardship  of  loss  of  employ- 
ment to  these  classes  is,  in  the  total,  probably  greater 
than  the  hardship  of  loss  of  employment  by  accidents 
which  it  is  sought   to   compensate.     We  injure   the 


REVOLUTION   OR   EVOLUTION?       59 

individual  as  well  as  the  race  by  such  grandmothering. 
A  severe  law  demanding  full  and  adequate  protection 
of  workers,  where  they  can  be  mechanically  protected, 
is  the  utmost  that  could  be  beneficially  enforced. 

The  provision  of  old  age  pensions  is  another 
pleasing  scheme.  In  the  first  place  it  will  diminish 
the  need  of  foresight  and  of  self-restraint ;  it  will  thus 
weaken  character  by  removing  the  great  driving  force 
of  self-interest.  The  burden  will  have  to  be  borne  by 
all,  including  those  who  are  already  at  the  last  gasp, 
and  will  tend  to  push  such  over  the  border  line.  It 
will  not  discriminate  between  those  who  have  borne 
a  large  share  in  the  cost  of  national  renewal  by 
bringing  up  a  family,  and  those  who  have  selfishly 
squandered  all  they  received.  And  like  outdoor 
poor  relief,  it  will  be  discounted  in  wages,  and  tend  to 
lower  the  wage  rate  if  no  savings  are  to  be  expected. 
A  sounder  plan  would  be  to  revert  to  the  kind  of 
communal  system  of  our  forefathers,  and  make  a 
legal  demand  for  a  pension  of,  say,  £2  a  year  from 
every  child,  and  10s.  a  year  from  every  grown  up 
nephew  or  grandchild.  Thus  those  who  have  done 
most  for  the  State  by  renewal  would  receive  most  in 
return,  and  the  greatest  inducement  would  be  given 
to  bring  up  children  to  active  and  capable  lives.  The 
idea  of  a  right  to  maintenance  would  be  the  knell  of 
any  State  which  undertook  it.  The  endowment  of 
wastrels,  the  taxing  of  all  the  capable  for  the  pro- 
pagation of  the  incapable,  and  the  wholesale  deteriora- 
tion of  character,  would  be  utter  ruin  to  a  nation. 
Nature  knows  of  no  right  to  maintenance,  but  only 
the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of  those  who  need  it  by 
mending  or  ending  them. 


60  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

There  is  another  movement  which  seems  most 
desirable  and  humane  at  first  sight,  and  irreproachable 
in  its  economic  aspect :  the  saving  of  infant  life  by- 
greater  care.  A  huge  waste  of  life  is  going  on,  and 
it  has  been  proved  that  it  is  preventable.  But  how- 
ever much  we  must  sympathise  with  it,  we  cannot 
shut  our  eyes  to  its  meaning.  England  produces 
over  300,000  excess  of  births  over  deaths  yearly, 
and  perhaps  a  tenth  more  might  be  added  to  that 
by  care  of  infant  life.  But  would  that  tenth  be  of 
the  best  stock  or  the  worst  ?  We  must  agree  that  it 
would  be  of  the  lower,  or  lowest  type  of  careless, 
thriftless,  dirty,  and  incapable  families  that  the  in- 
crease would  be  obtained.  Is  it  worth  while  to  dilute 
our  increase  of  population  by  10  per  cent,  more  of 
the  most  inferior  kind  ?  Will  England  be  stronger 
for  having  one  thirtieth  more,  and  that  of  the  worst 
stock,  added  to  the  population  every  year?  This 
movement  is  doing  away  with  one  of  the  few  remains 
of  natural  weeding  out  of  the  unfit  that  our  civilisa- 
tion has  left  to  us.  And  it  will  certainly  cause  more 
misery  than  happiness  in  the  course  of  a  century. 

Lastly,  let  us  look  to  the  general  question  of  the 
results  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
different  classes.  Roughly  we  may  divide  three 
classes  of  money-earners  :  the  lower,  who  receive 
weekly  pay,  and  are  tempted  to  spend  it  all  by  the 
certainty  of  poor  relief  when  needed  ;  the  middle, 
who  receive  yearly  pay,  and  must  save  if  they  are 
to  avoid  losing  caste  in  late  life  ;  the  upper,  who 
make  large  but  uncertain  profits  by  organising  work, 
or  by  financial  manipulation,  regular  or  irregular. 
During  the  last  century  we  have  seen  a  great  growth 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION?       61 

of  wealth  in  England.  At  first  it  spread  to  workmen 
and  manufacturers,  then  to  the  middle  classes  gener- 
ally, and  latterly  much  has  accumulated  in  the  hands 
of  large  operators  with  trusts  and  financial  dealings. 
What  has  been  the  result  of  the  wealth  in  the  hands 
of  each  class,  to  that  class,  and  to  the  whole  com- 
munity ?  The  rise  of  workmen's  pay  has  mainly 
been  used  up  ;  there  has  been  a  great  benefit  by 
improving  the  conditions  of  life,  but  perhaps  half  of 
the  increase  has  been  lost  in  mere  waste ;  very  little 
has  gone  toward  lifting  families  to  a  higher  class, 
and  but  a  very  small  proportion  has  been  saved. 
The  whole  property  of  the  poor  is  estimated  now  at 
nearly  a  year's  income,  the  result  of  savings  in  a 
century,  or  less  than  I  per  cent,  saved.  When  we 
turn  to  the  middle  classes  there  is  a  worse  spectacle. 
There  was,  broadly  speaking,  but  little  need  to  raise 
the  standard  of  expenditure  among  the  middle  classes. 
They  were  fairly  comfortable,  and  need  not  have  spent 
more  on  themselves  ;  their  gains  might  have  been 
spent  on  profitable  enterprises,  or  given  for  endow- 
ments to  public  purposes.  On  the  contrary,  but 
a  small  part  of  their  gains  have  been  saved  or 
remuneratively  spent,  and  far  the  greater  part 
has  disappeared  in  ever-increasing  ostentation.  It 
has  been  turned  into  a  curse  by  creating  an  absurdly 
artificial  standard  of  living  and  of  sociality,  so  burden- 
some that  every  man  is  ashamed  to  ask  a  friend  to 
the  leg  of  mutton  dinners  of  his  grandfather's  standard. 
It  is  thought  mean  to  spend  less  per  head  on  a  single 
dinner  than  the  amount  which  ought  to  keep  a  man 
in  comfort  for  a  couple  of  weeks.  Real,  genial 
sociality  has  been  uprooted  and  killed  in  the  senseless 


62  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

race  of  ostentation.  And  practically  nothing  has 
been  done  for  public  benefits  by  endowments.  As 
a  manufacturer  in  a  park,  with  a  motor,  remarked, 
"  you  cannot  expect  anyone  not  to  spend  up  to  his 
income."  The  idea  of  using  what  is  really  requisite 
for  successful  living,  and  not  squandering  money 
beyond  that,  is  entirely  forgotten.  The  simplicity  of 
having  nothing  that  is  unnecessary,  the  pleasure  of 
having  a  large  balance  to  use  beyond  the  needs  of 
life,  and  the  comfort  of  never  needing  to  worry  about 
money,  are  all  unknown  to  those  who  spend  up  to 
the  hilt,  and  who  turn  their  money  into  a  grinding 
curse  of  life.  The  distribution  of  surplus  wealth 
among  the  middle  classes  has  proved  an  entire  failure 
in  national  economics. 

Now,  lastly,  the  surplus  is  passing  into  a  new  class, 
the  large  business  speculator,  the  financier,  and  trust- 
man.  So  far  as  we  can  yet  see,  this  class  is  justifying 
itself  far  more  than  the  middle  class.  In  fifty  years 
the  middle  classes  have  not  given  as  much  to  endow 
education  as  the  millionaires  have  given  in  five  years. 
A  man  with  a  gigantic  income  cannot  spend  more 
than  a  few  per  cent,  of  it  on  himself.  He  must  use  it  for 
large  public  enterprises  which  benefit  mankind.  To 
put  it  in  another  form,  a  great  dealer  has  organised  a 
method  for  taxing  the  community  in  such  a  way  that 
they  do  not  notice  it.  And  if  he  spends  the  tax  on 
public  improvements  or  endowments — railways,  new 
inventions,  or  universities — he  is  an  active  benefactor 
to  the  whole  community.  He  sponges  up  the  surplus 
which  would  otherwise  be  frittered  away  in  ostentation 
or  luxury,  and  drops  it  out  where  it  is  a  permanent 
benefit.     As  a  principle  we  may  hate  the  trust-man 


REVOLUTION    OR   EVOLUTION  ?       63 

and  multi-millionaire,  but  he  may  be  a  lesser  curse 
than  the  extravagant  middle  or  lower-class  man.  War 
is  hateful,  but  it  may  be  a  lesser  curse  than  rotting 
in  peace.  So  long  as  the  average  man  shows  by  his 
selfish  luxury  that  he  is  incapable  of  managing 
wealth,  so  long  the  private  taxer — who  prevents  some 
of  the  waste — will  be  a  positive  blessing  to  the 
community.  The  evolution  of  the  great  money- 
manager  type  now  going  on  is  a  distinct  step  forward 
in  the  prevention  of  waste,  and  the  growth  of  a  better 
system  of  expenditure.  A  million  pounds  a  year 
scattered  over  a  hundred  thousand  men  will  be  all 
eaten  up  in  luxuries  or  lost  in  folly  ;  spread  among  a 
thousand  men  it  will  only  swell  their  wasteful  pride 
of  life  ;  but  put  it  in  the  hands  of  ten  men  who  have 
worked  for  it,  and  they  will  spend  most  of  it  in  useful 
work  that  will  bear  fruit.  Until  the  education,  moral 
and  intellectual,  of  the  average  man  is  on  a  higher 
plane,  it  will  be  well  for  the  surplus  wealth  to  be  in 
the  safer  hands  of  those  who  have  proved  their 
capacity  for  avoiding  waste.  The  evolution  of  society 
is  not  fitted  at  present  for  a  wealthy  middle-class,  or  a 
proletariat  domination. 

We  have  now  seen  in  many  directions  how  great  are 
the  changes  in  the  constitution  of  society,  which  are 
brought  about  by  a  succession  of  small  movements, 
each  of  which  imperceptibly  bears  its  share  in  the 
change.  We  see  thus  how  carefully  small  tendencies 
should  be  watched  ;  and  we  learn  how  needless  and 
often  how  futile  is  a  violent  uprooting  of  institutions 
instead  of  a  gradual  growth. 

Another  lesson  to  note  is  that  every  attempt  to 
interfere    by   legislation    in    the    natural    working    of 


64  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

causes  is  more  likely  to  do  harm  than  good.  The 
long  lesson,  which  it  took  all  the  middle  ages  to 
teach,  was  that  legislative  interference  with  trade 
always  did  harm  ;  we  have  come  to  believe  that  in  a 
half-hearted  way,  but  we  are  still  perpetually  longing 
to  tinker  society  by  interfering  with  natural  cause  and 
effect. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    NEED   OF   DIVERSITY. 

A  LARGE  part  of  the  aims  of  government  in  all 
ages  has  been  the  securing  of  uniformity,  and  much 
of  the  misery  of  mankind  has  been  caused  by  the 
enforcing  of  it.  But  when  we  look  at  nature  we  see 
that  a  highly  uniform  species  is  the  least  likely  to 
advance  ;  and  a  seedsman  or  a  breeder  will  try  to 
break  up  too  uniform  a  strain  by  exciting  conditions 
which  may  lead  to  beneficial  new  varieties.  It  is  only 
in  a  fluctuating  species  in  which  new  "  sports  "  easily 
arise,  or  are  quickly  developed  by  conditions,  that 
we  can  expect  to  acquire  new  qualities  or  beneficial 
advance. 

It  is  therefore  one  of  the  essentials  for  an  advancing 
species  that  it  should  have  full  scope  for  diversity,  so 
that  any  new  varieties  may  not  be  crushed  out  by  a 
uniformity  of  conditions.  Too  uniform  a  type  of 
government  is  a  deadly  thing.  Compulsory  orthodoxy 
killed  the  vitality  of  Spain,  and — so  far  as  it  suc- 
ceeded— that  of  France  also.  No  state  was  more 
brilliant  or  vigorous  than  the  Norman  rule  in 
Sicily,  which  equally  patronised  Muhammedan  and 
Christian. 

Diversity  may  be  secured  in  two  ways,  either  by 
large  varieties  within  a  single  great  state,  or  by 
differences  between  homogeneous  small  states.     The 

J-  F 


66  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

diversity  within  a  large  state  may  be  seen  in  England 
or  America ;  diversity  between  small  states  was 
attained  between  the  cities  of  ancient  Greece  or 
mediaeval  Italy. 

But  we  meet  with  limiting  conditions  in  the 
necessity  of  combination  for  mutual  support  ;  and  in 
small  states  that  can  be  carried  out  by  a  vigorous 
intolerance  which  weeds  out  those  who  are  not  con- 
formable, and  drives  them  into  more  congenial 
communities.  Intolerance,  therefore,  is  a  gain  to  a 
small  community,  though  detrimental  to  a  large 
state  where  it  excludes  the  neighbourhood  of  variety. 

In  modern  times  it  is  with  large  states  that  we 
have  mainly  to  deal.  They  are  a  necessary  develop- 
ment where  communication  is  sufficiently  easy  for  the 
concentrated  military  pressure  of  the  whole  to  be 
brought  to  bear  on  a  single  point.  If  states  are  so 
small  that  concentration  on  the  border  is  too  easy,  the 
state  will  expand  ;  if  concentration  is  difficult  owing 
to  size,  the  state  will  tend  to  fall  apart  again.  The 
size  for  states  which  is  most  successful  is  a  function 
of  the  facility  of  internal  communication.  Let  those 
who  deplore  the  absorption  of  small  states,  and  the 
growth  of  Imperialism  in  all  countries,  ponder  the 
tale  of  the  North  American  Indians,  who  resented  the 
power  of  the  white  man,  and  considered  how  to  rid 
themselves  of  him.  Their  great  council  was  rejoiced, 
when  one  sage  said  that  if  they  would  do  as  he  said, 
he  would  promise  that  no  white  man  should  remain. 
"  If  the  white  man  is  to  go  you  must  give  up  all  that 
he  brought,  the  horse,  the  gun,  the  blanket,  the  fire- 
water ;  if  you  will  do  this  you  maybe  free."  They  thought 
— and  then  said,  "  No,  he  must  stay."     So,  if  we  are 


THE   NEED   OF   DIVERSITY.  67 

willing  to  revert  to  nothing  quicker  than  a  cob,  we 
might  get  back  to  a  Heptarchy. 

The  modern  condition  of  great  states  being  therefore 
forced  upon  us  by  the  railway  and  telegraph,  the  only 
practical  question  is  the  form  of  life  in  such  com- 
munities. Uniformity  that  is  enforced,  either  by  law> 
or  by  custom  or  fashion,  is  certainly  a  detriment,  as 
it  will  suppress  the  useful  variations  when  they  arise. 
And  the  objection  to  it  bursts  out  in  the  form  of 
anarchism,  which  is  specially  a  disease  of  great  states. 
The  amount  of  anarchism  is  very  closely  related  to 
the  size  of  the  state  ;  and  it  is  probably  an  exact 
measure  of  the  internal  strain  produced  by  repulsion 
of  diverse  types  and  the  pressure  needed  to  keep  them 
together. 

It  is  only  a  very  crude  form  of  intolerance  to 
expect  many  tens  of  millions  of  people  to  agree  in 
religion,  morals,  and  government.  A  degree  of 
intolerance  that  may  succeed,  and  even  be  useful,  for 
some  thousands,  will  be  disastrous  if  applied  to  as 
many  millions  of  men. 

But  here  we  run  against  another  guiding  principle 
of  many  people.  It  is  often  assumed  that  possibly  in 
government,  probably  in  religion,  and  certainly  in 
morals,  there  is  an  absolute  standard  of  right  and 
wrong,  immutable  and  irremovable.  To  take  the  last 
subject — that  of  morals — to  the  utilitarian  they  are 
the  conditions  for  the  well-being  of  society,  and  may 
vary  indefinitely  with  the  variations  of  society,  and 
he  recognises  that  there  is  perhaps  no  action  which 
may  not  belong  to  the  best  code  of  morality  for 
certain  possible  conditions.  To  the  theologian  morals 
are  the  Divine  dictates,  which  have  varied  immensely 

F  2 


68  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

under  different  dispensations  ;  and  the  Patriarchal, 
early  Jewish,  Prophetic,  or  Christian  codes  are  repre- 
sented as  quite  incompatible  one  with  another.  The 
subjects  of  sister-marriage,  concubinage  of  captives, 
lapidation,  private  revenge,  communal  or  individual 
responsibility,  and  others,  all  show  how  entirely 
variable  the  presentation  of  the  moral  standard  is  for 
different  states  of  society.  Hence  we  must  always 
regard  any  given  moral  standard  as  being  rightly 
associated  with  some  particular  condition  of  society 
and  typical  of  it ;  much  as  the  colour  of  red  heat,  or 
yellow  heat,  or  white  heat,  is  typical  of  particular 
temperatures.  And  instead  of  blindly  reprobating 
those  among  us  who  do  not  conform  to  our  present 
theoretical  standard,  or  even  the  present  normal 
standard,  we  should  regard  them  as  fragments 
of  a  different  society  gone  astray  in  time  or 
space. 

Thus  we  see  that  diversity  should  be  tolerated  up 
to  the  limits  of  the  laws  that  are  absolutely  necessary 
to  avoid  confusion  and  misunderstanding  between 
members  of  the  same  community  :  and  there  is  no 
constraining  principle  which  would  narrow  the  varia- 
bility allowable,  short  of  permitting  injustice,  hardship, 
or  unfair  competition  between  those  who  need  to 
work  together  in  mutual  confidence  and  good  faith. 
It  may  truly  be  said  that  civilisation  is  the  means  for 
giving  scope  to  diversity. 

Under  stagnant  and  uniform  conditions  there  may 
be  a  fossilised  form  of  civilisation ;  but  any  living 
form  must  yield  opportunities  for  individual  effort, 
and  every  such  opportunity  is  the  making  or 
marring  of  the  man  who  rises  to  it  or  who  falls  before 


THE   NEED   OF   DIVERSITY.  69 

it.  The  leading  tenth  and  the  submerged  tenth  are 
equally  the  proof  that  a  living  civilisation  is  doing  its 
work  of  sorting  out  the  best  and  getting  rid  of  the 
worst  stock. 

From  another  point  of  view,  toleration  is  essential 
to  completion.  The  enormous  variety  of  character, 
and  ability  for  special  work,  is  all  needed  in  a  com- 
plete community.  There  are  many  "  wrong  paradises  " 
in  a  whole  society.  We  see  the  necessity  for  mental 
diversity,  from  the  pure  mathematician  who  is  proud 
of  the  inapplicability  of  his  results,  through  all  the 
successive  stages  of  research  work,  commercial  work, 
administrative  management,  and  mechanical  work, 
even  down  to  merely  automatic  work  which  needs  no 
more  mind  than  a  cow's.  And  it  is  perfectly  clear 
that  such  mental  diversity  must  have  corresponding 
variety  of  external  life  to  accommodate  it.  The 
student  or  experimental  worker  finds  the  disturbances 
of  communal  life  almost  insufferable,  while  the 
mechanical  worker  would  be  miserable  almost  to 
suicide  in  the  silence  and  lack  of  excitement  of  a  life 
devoted  to  abstract  thought  or  to  millionths  of  an 
inch.  If,  therefore,  the  productions  of  the  externals 
of  life  differ  so  profoundly  in  a  complete  society,  we 
must  expect  and  allow  equally  great  differences  in  all 
the  feelings,  instincts,  and  requirements.  One  man 
may  have  a  physical  repulsion  to  affecting  his  mind 
and  condition  by  stimulants  and  narcotics,  a  repulsion 
that  extends  more  or  less  to  every  one  addicted  to 
such  drugging  of  the  senses.  But  it  would  be  a 
misfortune  to  be  without  that  variety,  and  the  world 
would  be  poorer  by  losing  Falstaff,  or  even  Bardolph. 
The  utmost  we  can  say  is  that  we  should  never  be 


70  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

blind  to  the  bad  effects  on  the  community  of  a  low 
type  if  it  be  too  widely  diffused. 

So  long  as  the  extreme  parties  are  but  a  small 
portion,  and  the  distribution  of  variation  is  normal, 
most  in  the  middle  course  and  thinning  away  to  the 
upper  and  lower  limits,. the  society  is  stable  and 
benefits  by  its  variations.  But  if  the  curve  of  variation 
is  irregular,  and  shows  two  large  groups  with  fewer  in 
the  middle  course  between  them,  the  condition  is 
dangerous.  We  had  such  a  condition  in  England  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  after  a  long  struggle  of 
each  group  to  capture  the  middle  party,  the  separation 
into  two  communities  took  place.  The  spiritual 
ancestors  of  Clifford  and  Perks  and  Byles  were  happy 
in  their  paradise  of  intolerant  puritanism  in  New 
England,  while  Old  England  had  internal  peace  for  a 
couple  of  centuries.  Another  such  process  of  fission 
now  seems  growing  imminent,  and  it  is  again  the 
question  as  to  which  group  will  capture  the  middle 
party.  The  positive  danger  of  a  diversity  running 
into  two  separate  groups  is  notorious  in  history.  The 
Copts  invited  the  Arab  invasion  to  rid  them  of 
Byzantine  bondage  ;  the  Britons  invited  the  Saxons 
to  save  them  from  their  neighbours.  The  ideals  of  a 
County  Council  which  will  not  tolerate  a  quiet  square 
in  London,  or  of  labour  members  who  promote 
marches  of  the  unemployed  and  unlimited  taxation 
at  their  will,  may  drive  the  best  thought  in  England 
to  the  tranquillity  of  a  well-governed  capital  abroad  ; 
and  as  there  are  many  people  now  who  would  prefer  in 
England  a  Boer  domination  to  that  of  the  party 
represented  by  Cecil,  Halifax,  and  Riley,  so  there  are 
many  others  who  would  rather  submit  to  a  German 


THE    NEED   OF   DIVERSITY.  71 

government  of  London  than  to  a  sacking  by  a  hungry 
mob.  The  segregation  into  two  groups  with  an 
unstable  link  between  them  is  fatal  to  the  virtues 
classed  as  Patriotism.  A  studious  Englishman  would 
sooner  have  a  Japanese  or  Russian  professor  for  a 
neighbour,  than  have  the  average  drinking  workman 
and  rowdy  family  who  may  be  his  distant  cousins. 
And  assuredly  he  would  make  no  personal  sacrifices 
to  keep  out  of  England  any  people  who  were  proved 
to  be  the  moral  or  intellectual  superiors  of  the  rest  of 
his  countrymen.  We  thus  see  that  diversity,  however 
great,  must  vary  about  a  single  centre,  if  it  is  to  be 
favourable  to  society  as  a  whole. 

Looking  at  the  general  domination  of  modern  law 
it  is  truly  astonishing  how  much  uniformity  is  pos- 
sible. But  the  fact  of  a  uniform  law  being  in  force 
must  not  blind  us  to  the  existence  of  a  great  amount 
of  diversity  being  now  tolerated  side  by  side  with  it. 
For  instance,  we  are  so  accustomed  to  think  of  only 
one  type  ot  marriage  that  the  various  stages  recog- 
nised in  Roman  law  seem  astonishing.  Yet  in  legal 
status  in  England  there  are  ten  stages  surviving,  most 
of  which  are  tolerated  by  the  law.  There  is  (1)  royal 
assent,  needful  in  the  royal  family,  just  as  it  is  need- 
ful in  every  family  in  some  African  communities ; 
(2)  normal  religious  or  civil  marriage  ;  (3)  marriage  of 
divorced  persons,  only  civil  ;  (4)  within  prohibited 
degrees,  but  tolerated  socially,  as  deceased  wife's 
sister,  or  (5)  not  tolerated,  as  uncle  and  niece; 
(6)  quasi-permanent  connection  with  full  legalrespon- 
sibility  for  children  ;  (7)  temporary  license.  Only  in 
case  of  lack  of  full  consent  does  the  law  step  in  to 
punish,  in   (8)   marriage  under   age,   (9)    bigamy    or 


72  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

(10)  violence.  Every  one  of  these  stages  has  been 
normal  in  some  conditions  of  society,  and  most  are 
normal  in  some  countries  even  at  present.  We  may, 
for  example,  instance  (i)  normal  in  Benin  ;  (2)  religious 
marriage  only  normal  in  England ;  (3)  normal  in 
Eastern  Europe ;  (4)  normal  in  our  colonies ; 
(5)  normal  in  Italy ;  (6)  normal  in  Islam  ;  (7)  normal 
in  Madagascar  in  interregnum  of  sovereignty,  and  in 
other  countries  ;  (8)  normal  in  India  ;  (9)  normal  in 
Islam  ;  (10)  normal  in  most  warfare.  And  each  of 
these  stages  carries  with  it  in  England  different  legal 
and  social  conditions.  Again,  as  regards  the  period 
of  the  marriage  ceremony,  the  Church  has  had  a  long 
and  hard  fight  to  get  it  recognised  as  a  hymeneal 
ceremony  and  not  a  maternity  ceremony  ;  yet  the 
latter  status  is  recognised  in  law  as  equal  to  the 
former,  and  it  is  still  prevalent  among  a  third  of 
marriages  in  some  Australian  colonies,  and  very 
largely  in  England,  both  in  the  country  from  end  to 
end  and  in  town  life.  On  the  whole  some  fifteen 
hundred  years  of  church  pressure  has  not  turned  the 
scale  very  far  against  the  older  custom,  which  we 
might  well  call  approximation  by  trial  and  error. 
Such  is  the  diversity  which  is  yet  uncontrolled. 

We  must  regard  society,  therefore,  as  in  the  above 
definite  subject,  in  the  light  of  a  mixture  of  many 
stages  of  evolution.  We  may  still  sit  at  table  with 
palaeolithic  man,  put  into  modern  dress  and  eating 
modern  dishes  it  is  true,  but  absolutely  in  the 
palaeolithic  stage  of  thought  and  intellect ;  he  is 
entirely  absorbed  in  the  interests  of  hunting  wild 
animals,  and  devoted  to  his  appliances  for  the  chase, 
while  incapable  of  making   or   improving    anything 


THE    NEED   OF    DIVERSITY.  73 

belonging  to  a  higher  kind  of  civilisation.  Crime  and 
illegalities  are  very  largely  merely  survivals  of  different 
conditions  of  society,  which  the  law  of  the  majority 
has  not  succeeded  in  repressing.  As  such,  the  more 
reasonable  and  favourable  mode  of  dealing  with 
them  would  be  deportation  to  communities  where 
such  actions  are  still  normal.  Instead  of  five  years' 
sentence  for  bigamy,  let  us  exile  a  man  to  a 
Muhammedan  country.  If  we  were  seriously  to 
establish  island  communities  where  theft,  violence, 
anarchy,  and  other  phases  incompatible  with  any 
passable  diversity,  were  still  normal  and  unpunished, 
we  might  leave  all  those  who  preferred  to  practise 
such  conditions  to  work  out  their  own  life  and  views 
with  kindred   minds. 

Regarding  now  the  individual  rather  than  the  com- 
munity, we  see  in  modern  education  a  very  serious 
force  acting  against  that  diversity  which  is  needful  for 
progress.  So  far  as  it  is  a  social  force,  owing  to  the 
herding  together  of  large  masses  of  children,  and  so 
destroying  family  types,  it  is  mainly  deleterious.  The 
enforcement  of  trivial  and  senseless  regulations  by 
boys  themselves  is  entirely  a  detriment  to  character, 
as  destroying  a  habit  of  dealing  with  matters  on  their 
own  merits,  and  creating  a  terrible  bogey  of  senseless 
public  opinion.  The  compulsory  games  and  the 
ordering  of  the  use  of  personal  time,  is  another  detri- 
ment, for  it  certainly  destroys  some  ability  which 
might  find  its  footing  in  the  character  perma- 
nently. But  beside  the  detriment  of  the  system 
of  herding,  there  is  the  more  direct  question  of  the 
influence  of  the  teaching.  Most  children  begin 
with  a  great  curiosity  concerning  the  world  and  their 


74  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

experience  of  it,  a  curiosity  which  when  unguided 
leads  to  many  unpleasant  and  inconvenient  results. 
Hence,  instead  of  guiding  it  aright,  and  encouraging 
the  benefits  of  it,  the  selfish  and  lazy  plan  of  elders 
is  to  destroy  and  obliterate  the  reasoning  interest  in 
things,  and  try  to  enforce  in  its  place  a  knowledge  of 
matters,  which  are  generally  less  useful,  and  certainly 
less  interesting,  than  those  which  a  child  wants  to 
know  about.  The  leading  factor  of  character,  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  of  benefits  and  injuries,  of 
good  and  of  evil,  is  mainly  rooted  out  ;  and  the  new 
plants  of  abstract  ideas  and  bookwork  require  gene- 
rally many  years  to  take  good  root,  if  they  do  so  at 
all.  This  system  lies  at  the  base  of  the  unintellectual 
character  of  the  average  educated  Englishman,  who 
takes  no  useful  interest  in  anything.  As  an  example  of 
this,  there  is  a  foreign  land  full  of  interest,  scientific, 
historical,  and  social ;  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
hundreds  of  Englishmen  have  been  there  in  com- 
fortable official  positions  with  reasonable  leisure. 
Yet  there  is  not  a  single  good  memoir  produced,  not 
even  a  hundred  pages  of  original  matter,  outside  of 
official  work,  by  all  this  mass  of  educated  minds 
during  nearly  a  generation.  The  possibility  of  what 
might  have  been  done  in  such  grand  opportunities 
has  been  stamped  out  by  the  education  which  they 
have  suffered.  They  are  all  of  regulation  pattern, 
with  as  little  variation  as  is  possible  between  different 
temperaments — amiable  upright  men,  who  will  leave 
no  trace  of  anyone  being  the  wiser  in  future  for  their 
existence.  Such  is  the  product  of  the  numbing  chill 
of  uniformity,  and  the  weeding  out  of  the  advancing 
power  of  diversity. 


THE   NEED   OF   DIVERSITY.  75 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  epigram  of  England 
having  a  hundred  religions  but  only  one  sauce  ;  but 
we  see  a  worse  misfortune  in  the  absurd  incongruity 
of  now  having  two  hundred  religions  and  only  one 
system  of  elementary  education.  Amid  the  great 
variety  of  minds,  which  is  illustrated  by  the  free 
choice  of  religious  belief  and  practice,  we  certainly 
require  a  great  diversity  of  education  to  bring  out 
the  best  development  of  each  type.  We  require 
simultaneous  experiment  on  a  small  scale,  instead  of 
vast  experiments  of  Acts  which  apply  to  the  whole 
country  for  a  generation  at  a  time.  Every  Act  is 
only  an  experiment,  and  one  which  is  usually  spoiled 
by  attempting  too  much  in  a  compromise,  which  is 
neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl.  Had  there  been  in  1870 
a  hundred  schools  used  for  experiment,  say  five  of 
twenty  different  types  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
the  life-history  of  the  pupils  would  by  now  have  given 
us  a  firm  basis  for  rational  adjustment  of  a  system. 
It  is  fatuous  to  suppose  it  possible  to  make  one 
Procrustean  bed  to  fit  children  of  the  country,  the 
mining  centre,  the  manufacturing  district,  the  com- 
mercial town,  or  the  fisher  folk — of  the  Yorkshire 
tyke,  the  Suffolk  dumpling,  or  the  Hampshire  hog. 
Nor  is  it  merely  the  success  of  a  system  in  producing 
examination  results  that  has  to  be  attained.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  the  best  workers  in  after  life 
may  not  be  the  best  to  cram  with  temporary  book- 
work.  Nothing  short  of  twenty  years  of  active  life 
can  test  the  value  of  the  education  on  which  it  is 
based. 

Should  we  not  at  least  try  the  effect  of  varying 
amount    of  control  by  the  central  board,  the  local 


76  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

council,  and  the  teacher  himself?  May  not  some 
latitude  in  subject  be  allowed  to  a  teacher,  to  follow 
lines  which  his  own  mind  is  best  capable  of  making 
useful  ?  Should  not  a  great  difference  be  made 
between  the  town,  where  an  infant  school  is  needed, 
to  keep  children  safe  while  parents  are  at  work,  and 
the  country  where  they  can  be  left  to  play  in  the 
open  ?  Should  not  country  teaching  be  adapted  to 
making  agriculturists  ?  Might  it  not  be  possible  to 
leave  children  entirely  in  the  fields  till  sixteen,  pro- 
vided that  they  could  pass  in  reading  at  nine,  and  in 
figures  at  twelve,  however  it  was  learned  ?  A  solid 
two  years'  half-timing  from  sixteen  to  eighteen,  when 
they  valued  knowledge,  might  be  worth  all  they 
gain  in  the  present  way.  Such  are  a  few  of  the 
questions  to  which  answers  are  necessary,  before  we 
can  begin  to  provide  for  the  diversity  of  educa- 
tion, which  is  certainly  requisite  if  we  are  to  make 
it  successful — a  help  instead  of  a  detriment  in  after 
life. 

And  in  more  detailed  education  is  it  not  possible  to 
let  a  child's  mind  grow  on  what  is  of  interest  to  it — 
to  further  it  on  whatever  subjects  are  most  attractive 
and  easy  to  that  type  of  mind,  until  the  habit  of 
learning  is  so  developed  that  it  can  be  more  easily 
levelled  up  on  the  subjects  which  have  been  neglected  ? 
The  mere  habit  of  learning  and  applying  knowledge 
has  to  be  acquired  to  begin  with,  and  surely  the 
easier  subjects  are  the  best  on  which  to  practise  the 
power  of  concentration  of  mind.  The  trainer  knows 
that  his  monkeys  cannot  be  taught  unless  they  can 
concentrate  attention  on  the  subject  in  hand.  In 
every  direction  we  need  to  gain  diversity— in  types 


THE   NEED   OF   DIVERSITY.  77 

of  society,  in  customs,  in  varieties  of  mind  ;  and  to 
gain  this  basis  for  useful  variation  we  must  begin  by 
cultivating  diversity  and  providing  for  its  success, 
in  place  of  attacking  and  crushing  it  wherever  it 
appears. 


y 


CHAPTER   VI. 

LINES   OF  ADVANCE. 

BEFORE  we  can  imagine  what  may  be  lines  of 
possible  advance,  for  the  individual  or  the  community, 
we  should  base  our  ideas  on  observing  what  have 
been  the  means  of  advance  in  the  past.  Many  of 
the  Utopian  visions  which  have  been  sketched  by 
different  writers  are  in  flagrant  contradiction  of  all 
history  and  human  nature.  It  is  at  least  far  more 
likely  that  gain  in  the  future  will  be  on  similar  lines 
to  those  which  have  been  successful  in  the  past,  rather 
than  on  lines  opposed  to  all  previous  growth. 

The  personal,  rather  than  the  communal,  advance 
is  the  main  consideration,  inasmuch  as  it  is  personal 
initiative  of  the  most  able  which  helps  the  rest  of  the 
community  forward.  The  greatest  improvements 
are  the  result  of  a  single  mind,  animating  perhaps 
a  small  group  of  similar  minds.  We  all  know  how 
such  great  benefits  as  prison  reform,  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  the  restriction  of  child  labour,  and  similar 
movements  of  which  the  public  are  now  proud,  were 
each  originated  by  one  mind,  and  worked  by  a  small 
group  in  the  teeth  of  the  bitterest  opposition  to  start 
with.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  same  is  the 
case  in  all  inventions  ;  it  takes  not  only  an  inventor, 
but  also  a  commercial  organiser  (seldom  one  and  the 
same  man),  to  help  the  public  to  any  improvement. 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  79 

If  ten  thousand  men  could  be  picked  out  of  any  one 
country,  so  as  to  remove  the  most  fruitful  minds,  that 
country  would  come  to  an  entire  standstill,  and  would 
continue  in  mechanical  repetition  until  a  fresh  genera- 
tion gave  a  chance  of  the  rise  of  original  minds. 
Probably  not  more  than  one  in  a  thousand  minds 
causes  useful  advance  among  the  others.  And  the 
majority  of  men  lead  automatic  lives,  of  which  the 
reflexes  have  been  trained  by  teaching  and  experience 
to  do  what  is  required,  and  the  daily  actions  are  per- 
formed without  a  single  real  thought,  but  only  in 
response  to  external  stimuli  of  sights  and  orders.  It 
is  therefore  in  the  development  of  the  able  individuals, 
and  in  giving  every  chance  to  such  whenever  they 
arise,  that  the  hopes  of  the  great  mass  must  lie. 

It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  all  general 
popular  advance  of  the  community  at  large  is  based 
on  the  prevention  of  waste.  Wherever  waste  exists 
improvement  is  possible ;  and  we  need  not  trouble 
ourselves  much  about  the  construction  of  the  social 
organism,  so  long  as  we  can  lay  our  finger  on  the 
waste  and  check  it.  As  with  a  machine  we  know  the 
amount  of  force  that  is  put  into  it,  and  can  see  what 
percentage  is  yielded  up  usefully  in  its  output,  so  it  is 
with  a  community.  The  design  of  the  nature  and 
quality  of  work  done  by  the  community  or  the 
machine  is  another  matter  ;  though  that  again  comes 
under  the  head  of  waste  if  the  quality  is  bad.  We 
will  now  look  more  precisely  at  the  gains  by 
prevention  of  waste  in  health,  life,  energy,  and 
renewal. 

The  saving  of  health  is  one  of  the  greatest  steps 
that  has  been  made,  as  it  has  been  suddenly  performed 


80  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

within  a  generation.  Man  had  unconsciously  con- 
quered bacteria  to  a  great  extent  by  the  invention  of 
cooking,  and  by  the  experimental  learning  of  cleanli- 
ness ;  but  the  scientific  attack  on  bacteria  and  protozoa 
has  given  the  prospect  of  preventing  all  epidemic 
disease,  and  largely  increasing  the  efficiency  of  man 
in  the  most  fertile  countries.  This  advance  means 
the  economic  exploitation  of  the  whole  tropical  regions, 
which — with  cheap  transport — will  provide  an  immense 
fresh  basis  for  the  advantage  of  other  lands.  The 
gain  in  antiseptic  surgery,  giving  safety  for  operation 
on  all  internal  organs,  as  it  only  affects  the  small 
proportion  of  sick  and  injured,  is  not  of  so  much 
general  importance  as  the  conquest  of  the  micro- 
organisms, which  have  hitherto  ruled  the  best  part  of 
the  world.  It  is  in  the  complete  domination  over  all 
forms  of  life,  however  minute,  that  we  shall  find  one 
of  the  greatest  lines  for  future  advance.  Only  a  small 
band  of  workers,  about  one  in  a  hundred  million  of 
the  world's  population,  has  made  this  advance 
possible. 

The  saving  of  life  is  another  great  step  which  will 
give  man  far  higher  power  ;  not  only  in  the  mere 
hindrance  of  death,  but  far  more  in  the  increased 
power  of  work  per  day.  The  power  of  continuity  of 
work  is  a  growth  of  civilisation  ;  and  it  is  obvious  that 
a  man  who  can  do  twelve  hours'  work  per  day,  instead 
of  six  hours,  not  only  lives  virtually  twice  as  long,  but 
costs  the  community  only  half  as  much  for  what  he 
does.  This  continuity  of  work,  or  industry,  is  seen 
in  both  high  and  low  classes  of  work.  Some  races 
can  do  more  than  twice  as  much  agricultural  work  in 
the  day  as  others.     The  same  is  true  of  scientific  or 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  81 

commercial  work.  And  there  have  been  some  of  the 
highest  minds  which  could  only  work  for  two  hours 
a  day,  while  others  could  work  up  to  fourteen  or 
sixteen  hours  daily.  This  power  of  continuity  of 
work  is  obviously  then  a  matter  improvable  by  culti- 
vation, both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race  ;  and  as 
it  may  easily  double  a  man's  effective  life  it  is  certainly 
a  line  of  great  promise  for  the  future. 

Another  direction  for  saving  a  portion  of  life  is  in 
the  rapidity  of  thought  and  action.  It  is  easy  to  find 
a  difference  of  two  or  three  times  the  amount  of  work 
per  hour  between  different  men.  All  that  we  have 
just  said  about  the  continuity  of  work  applies  to  its 
rapidity  ;  and  a  large  gain  may  be  looked  for  in 
cultivating  pace  and  vigour.  We  need  hardly  note  that 
trades-union  ideals  would  destroy  instead  of  promoting 
these  most  promising  and  fruitful  lines  of  advance. 

In  transport  from  place  to  place  the  movement  at 
fifty  miles  an  hour  instead  of  five  means  a  gain  of 
several  years  of  life  to  most  men.  But  here  we  have 
probably  reached  the  useful  limits,  as  any  possible 
further  saving  would  not  yield  much  more  time. 

The  saving  of  energy  is  another  form  of  the 
question  of  continuity  of  work.  The  ideal  of  work 
— as  varied  as  possible,  and  as  interesting  as  possible 
— being  the  joy  of  life  and  the  greatest  good,  is  an  aim 
hardly  yet  grasped  by  more  than  a  very  few  persons. 
To  the  majority,  work  is  a  hateful  thing,  to  be  done 
solely  in  order  to  get  means  for  enjoyment  in  some 
other  way.  This  essentially  savage  and  uncultivated 
ideal  needs  to  be  steadily  rooted  out  by  the  better 
adaptation  of  work  to  the  individual.  An  education 
which  started  by  cultivating   the   natural    interests, 

J-  G 


82  JANUS   IN    MODERN   LIFE. 

using  them  for  mental  development,  and  only  super- 
adding what  further  knowledge  was  really  requisite 
for  life,  would  greatly  help  to  eradicate  the  false  and 
low  idea  of  work  which  prevails.  There  is  a  common 
feeling  that  business  cannot  be  interesting  in  itself ; 
but  there  are  few,  if  any,  businesses  which  if  intelli- 
gently followed  will  not  yield  scope  for  some  real 
interest  of  observation  and  study.  The  greater 
application  of  mind  to  the  work  of  life  will  leave 
far  less  scope  for  fruitless  amusement  and — as  a 
great  painter  remarked — "  there  is  nothing  of  interest 
in  life  to  be  compared  with  work." 

To  minds  which  are  incapable  of  continuity  of 
work,  or  of  relaxation  by  variation  of  work,  mere 
amusements  are  needful.  Darwin's  health  prevented 
more  than  two  hours'  work  a  day,  and  the  flimsiest  of 
novels  was  his  needful  relaxation.  But  the  need  of 
amusement  for  this  purpose  must  be  taken  as  the 
index  of  incapacity  for  continuity — as  an  unfortunate 
failure  of  mental  and  physical  health — as  a  disastrous 
defect  when  it  occurs  along  with  great  abilities  which 
can  only  thus  work  at  low  speed.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  athletics;  the  need  of  physical  exercise  outside 
of  work  is  an  index  of  incapacity  for  physical  health 
adapted  to  the  work,  an  unfortunate  failure  of  those 
who  are  of  defective  condition.  The  idea  that  no  one 
can  be  too  strong  and  robust  is  a  wild  exaggeration  ; 
physical  strength  needs  to  be  proportioned  to  the 
nature  of  work,  and  a  slender  wiry  man  will  do  far 
better  for  indoor  life  than  a  plethoric  mass  of  brawn 
and  muscle  which  needs  much  exercise  to  keep  in 
health.  Unlimited  robustness  is  not  an  absolute 
good,  to  be  pursued  at  all  costs,  or  else  we  should 


LINES   OF  ADVANCE.  83 

make  every  schoolboy  a  Hun,  living  without  shelter, 
and  feeding  on  flaps  of  raw  meat  which  form  the  only 
saddle  of  his  horse.  In  brief,  the  need  of  athletics 
shows  a  weakness  of  body  to  be  remedied,  or  a 
physical  over-development  unsuited  to  the  person's 
work  in  life  ;  it  is  the  mark  of  unfitness,  and  the  need 
ceases  so  soon  as  a  man  is  adapted  to  his  work.  The 
need  of  spending  any  considerable  time  on  amuse- 
ment is  the  sign  of  an  incapacity,  which  has  to  be 
removed  by  strengthening  the  mind  in  the  individual 
or  in  the  race.  The  passion  for  amusement  is  the 
sure  evidence  of  a  defective  education,  which  has  left 
the  mind  incapable  of  continuity,  or  bare  of  interests. 
An  important  advance  therefore  lies  in  better  use  of 
the  time  which  is  at  present  wasted  in  fruitless  action 
of  mind  or  body  ;  better  adaptation  and  education  for 
the  work  of  life  will  gradually  raise  the  standard  so 
that  this  form  of  waste  will  be  avoided.  We  do  not 
expect  a  uniform  type  of  horse  to  be  equally  adapted 
to  draught  or  hunting  or  racing  ;  and  similarly  we 
ought  to  specialise  on  different  types  of  men  fitted 
for  agriculture,  or  mechanical  work,  or  office  work. 

The  great  subject  of  the  waste  by  renewal  of  the 
population  in  each  generation  has  an  immense  variety 
of  aspects  ;  but  the  essential  importance  of  it  is  seen 
when  we  reflect  that  about  half  the  labour  of  the 
world  is  swallowed  up  in  this  renewal.  The  burden 
of  production,  of  rearing,  of  education,  and  the  waste 
and  loss  in  the  process,  exceeds  that  of  any  other 
activity,  such  as  supply  of  food  or  shelter,  for  the 
adult.  Hence  any  possible  saving  in  this  great  mass 
of  labour,  or  reduction  of  waste,  is  of  the  first 
importance  to  the  individual  and  the  race. 

G  2 


84  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

Those   who    have    proposed    temporary    marriage 
hardly   seem    to   have   considered    that   one   of   the 
most  important  economies   adopted,  perhaps  dating 
from    a   pre-human    period,  was  that  of  permanent 
marriage.     This  saved  at  a  stroke  the  enormous  loss 
of  time  and  energy  in  the  rivalries  of  repeated  mating. 
The  gain  to  the  race  by  leaving  the  members  free  for 
continuous  work  is  greater  than  the  loss  by  repro- 
ducing  inferior  stocks.      There    is  no  need    for  the 
system  to  have  been  intentionally  adopted  for  this 
purpose ;  but   merely  a  race  which   economised  the 
time  of  repeated  mating  would  soon  oust  a  race  in 
which  it  was  customary.     For  this  reason  any  fancied 
reconstruction  of  society  without  permanent  marriage 
is  entirely  futile  ;  even  if  it  could  be   universal,  yet 
the  advantage  given  to  the  lazy  and  emotional  type 
of  man  above  the  continuous  worker  would  soon  pull 
down  the  race.     One  frequent  argument  for  a  more 
revocable  union   is  the  number  of  divorces  effected 
or  desired.      But  nearly  all  such  are  among  people 
whose    judgment    in    any  other    line    of   life  would 
certainly  not  be  trusted,  and  who  habitually  get  into 
trouble  over  other  communal  obligations.    To  abolish 
marriage  for  their  benefit  would  be  as  reasonable  as 
allowing    all    debts   to   be    repudiated   because   such 
people  cannot  pay  their  I.O.U.'s.     There  is  moreover 
a  great  gain  in  permanent  marriage  when  judiciously 
effected,  by  the   new  mental  pivot  of  a  sense  of  per- 
manent ensurance  of  various  of  the  conditions  of  life, 
which  liberates  the  attention  of  both  parties  from  a 
large  number  of  points,  and  leaves  each  free  to  con- 
centrate attention  on  a  partial  phase  of  feelings  and 
duties.     It  is  a  far  higher  and  a  spiritual  counterpart 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  85 

of  a  successful  business  partnership,  where  each 
member  trusts  the  other  to  manage  a  different  part 
of  the  affair.  All  this  mental  economy  and  help 
would  be  impossible  without  permanence. 

Another  wastage  which  has  been  greatly  reduced  in 
modern  times  is  that  of  high  birth  rate  and  high  death 
rate.  The  allusions  in  mediaeval  times  show  a  state 
much  like  that  now  described  among  the  Slovenes, 
where  incessant  maternity  is  only  balanced  by  the 
reduction  of  children  due  to  filth,  neglect,  and  bad 
conditions.  The  modern  ideal  of  a  small  family  care- 
fully tended  is  an  immense  advance,  both  for  the 
individual  life  and  for  the  saving  of  waste.  But  its 
benefits  should  be  sought  and  not  commanded.  If 
the  neglectful,  dirty,  and  wasteful  stocks  of  low  type 
in  our  midst  let  their  children  die  off,  it  is  the  only 
balance  to  their  overgrowth,  which  would  soon  out- 
number the  better  class  of  population.  The  right 
end  to  begin  at  is  by  insisting  on  hard  work  and  tidy 
living,  under  penal  enactments  ;  the  saving  of  the 
children  may  then  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  To 
begin  at  the  sentimental  end,  as  is  now  the  fashion,  is 
to  degrade  the  whole  race  by  swamping  it  with  the 
worst  stocks. 

The  line  of  progress  in  invention  is  the  remorseless 
"  scrapping  "  of  poorer  machines.  The  more  serious 
the  progress  becomes,  the  more  scrapping  needs  to  be 
done.  We  must  not  be  surprised  then  if  a  sign  of 
human  progress  of  mind  and  body  should  be  the 
large  number  of  inefficients  who  are  thrown  out  of 
work  on  the  scrap  heap  of  society. 

In  another  direction  advance  has  been  made  by 
general  lengthening  of  the  stages  of  life.     The  early 


86  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

marriage  and  early  deaths  of  past  times  brought  the 
cost  of  renewal  at  every  twenty  years,  which  was  a 
much  severer  tax  on  the  community  than  renewal 
in  thirty  or  forty  years.  There  is  probably  also  a 
great  benefit  in  the  higher  development  of  parents 
before  each  generation.  It  is  well  recognised  how  the 
later  children  of  a  family  are  more  able,  and  of  a  more 
finished  quality  than  the  earlier ;  great  examples  of 
such  a  view  in  older  literature  being  Joseph  and 
David,  and  in  our  own  history,  Alfred.  The  longer 
growth  of  mind  before  each  generation  appears  to  be 
a  great  gain  of  advance  for  the  race.  Among  the 
lower  races,  by  far  the  most  advanced  are  those  like 
the  Zulu,  which  have  a  long  period  of  hard  training 
and  active  life  before  settling  down  to  family 
duties. 

The  often  debated  problem  dealing  with  the  human 
refuse  of  bad  stocks  is  one  which  presses  most  on  an 
advanced  civilisation.  We  will  not  do  like  the  Chris- 
tian Norseman,  when  he  put  the  ne'er-do-weel  family 
into  a  wide  grave  in  the  churchyard,  and  wiped  his 
hands  of  them.  We  will  not  even  leave  them  to 
exterminate  themselves  by  their  own  follies,  vices, 
and  ignorance.  But  if  the  state  takes  up  the  burden 
of  such  wastrels  it  must  have  an  entire  control  of 
them.  Responsibility  without  rule  is  worse  than  rule 
without  responsibility.  The  only  safe  course  is  a 
rigorous  enforcement  of  parental  duties  ;  with  the 
alternative  of  penal  servitude  in  state  workshops,  the 
mother  and  children  together,  the  father  elsewhere. 
There  is  no  middle  course,  of  semi-maintenance  by 
school  meals,  which  will  not  injure  the  children  by 
their  being  correspondingly  neglected  at  home,  injure 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  87 

the  parents  by  lowering  the  spur  of  necessity  to  work, 
and  injure  the  state  by  flooding  it  with  the  worst 
types. 

Much  more  drastic  treatment  of  the  unfit  has  been 
advocated,  as  by  Dr.  Rentoul.  In  a  future  period  of 
civilisation  a  logical  course  of  treatment  might  have  a 
chance  of  adoption ;  but  in  our  age  any  serious 
changes  of  the  habits  of  thought  and  action  will  not 
be  tolerated,  unless  brought  about  very  gradually 
under  small  influences,  such  as  we  have  noticed  as 
acting  through  taxation.  What  we  need  is  to  try  to 
give  effect  to  the  gospel  of  giving  to  him  that  hath,  and 
taking  away  from  him  that  hath  not.  The  most  likely 
opening  for  such  a  line  of  advance  would  be  giving 
partial  state  maintenance  to  the  best  stocks,  so  as  to 
ensure  large  returns  from  them,  and  taxing  down  the 
worst  stocks — exactly  the  opposite  course  to  the 
present  craze.  Let  us  try  to  realise  if  there  be  a 
practical  system  for  this  advance. 

We  should  need  a  Board  of  Health  in  each  area  of 
about  10,000  inhabitants,  composed  of  three  examin- 
ing doctors.  Every  child  on  leaving  school,  or  at 
about  fifteen,  should  be  examined,  merely  by  a  glance 
at  the  greater  bulk  of  normal  cases,  but  carefully  in 
extreme  cases.  The  finest  5  per  cent,  both  mentally 
(shown  by  school-leaving  certificates)  and  physically 
as  well,  should  be  premiated  by  assisted  higher  educa- 
tion of  suitable  type.  The  worst  10  per  cent,  should 
be  remanded  to  a  training  school  where  physical  and 
mental  development  would  be  scientifically  carried 
out,  and  as  much  profit  as  possible  made  from  their 
labour  toward  self-support.  This  would  reclaim  the 
hooligan  class  effectually  before  the)-  run  amuck,  and 


88  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

help  on  those  who  need  care  and  assistance  to  get  a 
good  footing  in  life.  No  course  could  possibly  be 
kinder  for  the  weaklings.  At  the  age  of  twenty  a 
further  examination  of  both  the  best  and  the  worst 
classes  should  ensue.  The  best  half  of  the  most  able 
should  receive  a  certificate  granting  them  practically 
free  support  for  all  children  they  may  have  after  they 
have  reached  the  age  of  twenty-five.  The  worst  half 
of  the  most  incapable,  or  5  per  cent,  of  all,  should  be 
required  to  report  residence  during  their  lives  to  the 
Board  of  Health  of  their  district,  and  informed  that  if 
they  had  any  children  they  must  pay  a  heavy  fine,  or 
else  go  into  servitude.  This  would  practically  mean 
the  segregation  of  the  lowest  class  of  the  unfits  under 
compulsory  work.  It  would  be  cheaper  to  the  state 
to  keep  them  thus  at  work,  than  to  pay  poor  rates  to 
maintain  this  submerged  twentieth  and  their  helpless 
families. 

In  all  these  proposals  there  would  be  no  Socialistic 
constraint  of  the  great  majority,  which  is  normal  in 
mind  and  body.  But  such  attention  to  the  unfit 
would  be  merely  adding  a  porch  to  the  poorhouse,  the 
hospital,  and  the  asylum,  and  there  sorting  over  the 
material  which  can  be  possibly  saved  from  a  bad  end. 
The  nine-tenths  of  people  who  were  ordinary  would 
be  thus  left  even  more  free  for  individual  growth  than 
they  now  are,  when  hampered  by  the  inefficient 
residue. 

We  might  not  exclude  the  thought  of  another 
favourite  idea  of  some  reformers  which  in  a  modified 
shape  might  be  allowed  to  gradually  take  root.  Since 
Spencer  Wells  familiarised  the  world  with  an  opera- 
tion for  which  he  will  always  be  remembered,  hundreds 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  89 

of  women  have  gladly  improved  their  health  by  a 
safe  treatment,  which,  if  anything,  threatened  to 
become  too  fashionable.  Every  woman  who  was,  as 
above,  required  to  report  her  residence  as  being  unfit, 
and  being  liable  to  heavy  penalties  on  having  children, 
should  be  offered  the  option  of  perfect  freedom  if  she 
chose  the  operation.  The  marriage  of  such  women, 
with  men  who  were  condemned  as  unfit,  would 
entirely  free  both  parties  from  reporting  and  inspection 
in  future,  and  give  the  best  prospect  of  happy  lives  to 
the  weakest  and  less  capable  of  the  community,  free 
from  what  would  be  only  too  truly  "encumbrances" 
to  such  people.  This  course  might  give  a  permanently 
safe  line  of  improvement,  without  any  consequent 
stigma  or  hardship  in  the  world  around  ;  and  so  gentle 
a  change — beneficial  to  the  individual  as  well  as  the 
community — seems  not  outside  of  future  possibilities. 
At  least  such  a  course  would  be  the  more  practicable 
form  of  such  a  proposed  change.  Of  course,  no  such 
legislation  would  be  complete  in  its  action,  and 
evasions  would  often  occur.  But  if  it  checked  even 
one  half  of  the  growth  of  bad  stock  it  would  be  an 
enormous  gain. 

We  now  turn  to  other  lines  of  advance  from  the 
communal  point  of  view.  The  old  system  of  com- 
munity, in  which  all  the  nations  of  northern  Europe 
lived,  was  based  on  each  man  being  his  brother's 
keeper  ;  every  one  was  liable  to  fines  if  any  relative 
committed  a  crime,  in  proportion  to  their  closeness  of 
relation.  To  this  succeeded  individual  responsibility, 
both  in  property  and  in  penalties.  This  raises  the 
question  whether  it  is  possible  to  separate  property 
and  penalty  in  communism.    At  present  the  tendency 


go  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

is  to  a  state  communism,  begun  by  heavy  death 
duties  and  taxation  (for  a  variety  of  purposes  which 
the  taxed  do  not  use  or  require),  amounting  to  a 
quarter  of  all  property.  If  this  system  is  extended, 
and  property  becomes  more  largely  hypothecated  to 
public  purposes,  then  when  a  man  is  condemned  in 
heavy  damages  or  fines  his  neighbours  will  suffer  by 
reduction  of  the  rateable  property.  Will  it  not  be 
thought  more  fair  for  his  relatives  to  be  responsible 
for  the  public  loss  ?  And  if  so,  we  indirectly  revert 
to  the  payment  by  relatives  of  a  share  of  all  fines. 

To  anyone  who  has  had  experience  of  combined 
labour,  it  is  obvious  how  two  people  working  together 
do  not  perform  twice  as  much  as  one  alone.  There 
is  always  a  loss  by  one  waiting  on  the  action  of 
another  ;  and  it  appears  as  if  the  amount  of  work 
done  only  increased  as  the  square  root  of  the  number 
of  people  working  together.  Hence  the  group-work  of 
communistic  taste  is  very  wasteful.  This  is  practically 
seen  among  the  Slavs  in  Russia,  where  communal  agri- 
culture— which  is  extolled  by  its  admirers — produces 
far  less  per  acre  on  fine  land,  than  is  obtained  by  indi- 
vidual agriculture  on  poor  land  in  England.  Again 
it  is  notorious  how  the  Irishman  who  goes  to  work 
apart  among  individualist  people,  then  flourishes  as  he 
never  does  when  held  down  by  the  communal  claims 
socially  enforced  among  his  own  countrymen.  This 
is  the  root  of  the  success  of  the  Irish  out  of  their  own 
land.  Thus  we  see  how  communal  action  is  the  more 
wasteful  form  of  labour;  and  how  it  was  a  great 
advance  for  man  when  he  made  individual  success 
entirely  depend  upon  individual  labour. 

Another  question  is  what  form  of  government  will 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  91 

most  favour  the  strong  breeds  and  the  new  strains  of 
ability   as  they  arise?     Certainly  any  system  which 
ties  the  actions  of  one  person  with  those  of  others  is 
detrimental  to  ability.     The  better  man  is  held  back 
by  the     co-operation     with    others,    by   their   lower 
example,  and  by  their  direct  disfavour.     Any  com- 
munistic tie  is  unfavourable  to  advance  ;  and  it  was  a 
great  step  in  favour  of  new  and  improved  variations 
when    each   individual    stood    entirely   on   his    own 
resources,  and  was  not  bound  by  his  inferior  kin.     In 
every   way,   therefore,    individualism    was    a    line  of 
advance   for    men    in  the  past  ;    and    the    principles 
which  are  involved  promise  that  it  will  yet  likewise  be 
the  main  line  of  future  advance.     If  we  look  practi- 
cally at  which  class  of  government  is  associated  with 
advance  of  ideas,  of  inventions,  and  new  types   of 
thought,  let   us   put   on   one    hand    the  more    indi- 
vidualist countries,  America,  England,  Germany,  and 
perhaps   France,  and   on  the  other  hand  the   more 
communist   countries,  Switzerland,  Norway,  Ireland, 
Greece,  Australia,  and  especially  New  Zealand.     Can 
we  question  for  a  moment  which  type  of  country  is 
most  advancing  the  intellect  and  abilities  of  man  ? 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  Union  is  strength,  the 
motto  that  Belgium  strangely  took  on  separating  from 
Holland  ;  and  combined  action  has  great  advantages. 
In  this  view  the  beneficial  combination  is  that  to 
which  all  contribute  without  one  being  a  hindrance 
to  the  other.  How  far  can  these  benefits  be  gained  with- 
outloss  to  the  improved  individual  ?  The  main  principle 
is  that  all  combinations  must  be  entirely  voluntary, 
and  have  no  suspicion  of  coercion  about  them. 
Where  even  "  peaceful  persuasion  "  comes  in,  ability 


92  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

is  crushed,  and  the  whole  community  is  the  loser  by 
it.  Coercive  union  of  individuals  is  the  unpardonable 
sin  against  human  nature,  because  it  kills  the  hopes 
of  the  future.  The  safe  line  of  advance  is  combination 
by  large  clubs  for  every  purpose,  with  healthy  rivalry 
between  similar  institutions — benefit  clubs,  co-opera- 
tive stores,  co-operative  works,  holiday  clubs,  and 
insurance  of  all  kinds.  Every  inducement  should  be 
held  out  to  join  in  such  combinations,  giving  them 
the  assistance  and  security  of  official  auditors,  as  is 
provided  for  friendly  societies  at  present.  Every  line 
in  which  any  class  can  profitably  unite  for  economic 
action,  on  an  entirely  voluntary  basis,  and  without 
any  tie  on  the  individual  beyond  his  share  in  the 
enterprise,  is  a  clear  gain  to  society.  In  this  way  the 
taxation  for  these  ends  would  fall  on  those  who 
benefit  by  them,  and  not  on  those  who  do  not  want 
them.  Thus  the  individual  would  be  free  to  take,  or 
leave  alone,  the  benefits  provided  ;  and  many  pur- 
poses to  which  taxation  is  now  applied  would  be  far 
better  effected  by  gigantic  clubs  of  those  classes  who 
want  such  assistance.  Taxation  must  be  strictly 
limited  to  those  purposes  in  which  all  persons  must 
necessarily  share,  such  as  protection  and  justice. 

Hence  a  future  line  of  advance  lies  in  a  great 
development  of  purely  voluntary  co-operation  in  any 
one  class,  in  order  to  obtain  the  advantages  of  com- 
bination. In  one  direction  it  is  clear  what  immense 
savings  might  be  thus  effected.  Co-operative  purchase 
of  supplies  and  cooking,  with  distribution  of  hot 
meals  to  subscribers,  would  save  perhaps  a  third  of 
the  cost  of  living  to  the  working  classes.  And  if  the 
prepaid    weekly   subscriptions    might    be    deducted 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  93 

before  wages  were  received,  such  a  system  would  go 
far  to  solve  the  question  of  proper  feeding  of  children. 
Again,  the  education  of  hand-workers  in  the  subject 
of  economics  can  be  best  furthered  by  the  experience 
gained  in  co-operative  works,  and  even  on  this  ground 
alone  every  encouragement  should  be  given  to  such 
combinations  of  workers. 

Another  line  of  advance  now  coming  into  practical 
view  is  the  use  of  various  nationalities,  according  to 
their  abilities  for  different  kinds  of  works  in  foreign 
countries.  We  have  seen,  in  Europe,  Italian  miners 
taken  to  many  lands  for  tunnelling  and  submarine 
work,  we  have  Norwegians  largely  employed  in  our 
shipping,  and  English  engineers  find  many  careers 
abroad.  Of  recent  years  the  great  mass  of  cheap 
skilled  labour  of  China  and  Japan  has  been  getting 
its  due  share  of  the  world's  work.  The  infamous 
manner  in  which  the  Chinese  have  been  treated  in 
America  is  apparently  now  nearly  at  an  end  ;  the 
Republic  where  all  men  are  free  and  equal  will  be 
coerced  into  fairness  by  the  reasonable  refusal  to  take 
American  goods  as  long  as  the  Americans  will  not 
take  Chinese  labour.  In  British  Columbia  the 
Japanese  are  objected  to  because  they  are  more 
industrious,  more  economical,  more  sober  and  quiet 
than  the  white,  who,  as  their  inferior  in  these  principal 
respects,  cannot  bear  their  competition.  The  Ameri- 
cans are  likewise  trying  to  prevent  their  industry, 
while  at  the  same  time  wishing  to  make  the  Panama 
Canal  with  Chinese  labour  ;  in  this  they  will 
probably  be  rebuffed,  unless  the  whole  national 
position  is  put  on  a  fair  basis.  The  objections  to 
Chinese  labour  in  South  Africa  have  never  been  put 


94  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

on  the  real  fact — tacitly  felt,  though  unexpressed — 
that  the  white  dreads  the  competition  of  an  economical 
people.  First  they  were  said  to  be  tortured  in  slavery, 
a  lie  which  served  its  big  political  purpose  until  it 
was  found  that  they  would  not  leave;  then  the 
danger  of  public  crime  and  burglary  was  put  forward, 
until  it  was  shown  that  there  were  fewer  criminals  in 
proportion  than  among  other  inhabitants  ;  then  a  cry 
of  immorality  was  raised,  until  the  Colonial  Secretary 
stated  that  the  Kaffirs  who  would  replace  them  had 
just  the  same  habits.  Now  the  Transvaal  refuses  to 
destroy  its  own  welfare  by  the  falseness  of  playing 
with  any  of  these  cries ;  but  such  hatred  to  free 
labour  has  all  served  the  political  ends  which  were 
intended  by  an  unscrupulous  party  that  revels  in 
keeping  a  conscience.  Meanwhile  the  Prussian  Board 
of  Agriculture  desires  to  import  Chinese  agricultur- 
ists into  Germany ;  and  it  will  be  strange  if  the  great 
German  coalfields  in  South  Wales  are  not  run  by  the 
cheapest  labour  that  can  be  obtained.  We  have  no 
laws  to  prevent  Chinese  working  freely  in  England, 
and  we  cannot  afford  to  wreck  our  great  China  trade 
by  starting  a  gross  injustice  of  exclusion. 

If  objections  are  felt — by  a  people  so  immoral  as 
ourselves— to  the  toleration  of  any  habit  of  foreign 
residents,  let  it  be  legislated  upon  equally  for  all 
nationalities  in  England.  In  this  way  the  Canadians 
expelled  the  rowdy  negroes  who  had  taken  refuge 
with  them  in  the  days  of  slavery.  A  rigid  and 
impartial  punishment  of  rowdyism  cleared  out  the 
undesirable  negro,  and  left  the  inoffensive  behind. 
The  only  possible  course  of  safety  is  not  by  any 
laws  directed  against  any  one  race ;  for  when  such 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  95 

laws  break  down  in  the  growth  of  the  future  there 
will  be  a  terrible  economic — if  not  political — catas- 
trophe. Rigid  laws  to  check  evils  of  all  inhabitants 
of  a  country  alike  are  sound  and  safe,  and  will 
prevent  most  of  the  objectionable  results  of  immi- 
gration, Jewish,  Italian,  Chinese,  or  any  other.  With 
such  laws  a  great  advance  can  be  made  by  the  free 
use  of  that  kind  of  labour  which  is  most  adapted  to 
the  work,  whatever  source  it  may  come  from.  Such 
must  inevitably  be  the  course  of  the  distant  future  ; 
and  those  who  play  with  holding  what  they  please  to 
call  a  "  white  man's  land "  will  find  that  "  mean 
whites  "  of  hot  countries  are  wholly  inferior  to  other 
races  which  are  fitted  for  such  a  position.  Bret  Harte 
has  well  stated  "  the  conscious  hate  and  fear  with 
which  inferiority  always  regards  the  possibility  of 
even-handed  justice,  and  which  is  the  key-note  to 
the  vulgar  clamour  about  servile  and  degraded 
races." 

Another  subject  which  has  seemed  to  be  a  most 
promising  line  of  advance  is  that  of  the  reduction  or 
abolition  of  warfare.  We  must  not  limit  our  view 
in  this  to  open  and  direct  violence,  there  are  other 
forms  of  warfare  quite  as  effective,  and  causing  as 
much,  or  more,  misery  in  the  total.  The  warfare  of 
trade  is  always  going  on,  each  nation  is  pushing  its 
neighbours  as  much  as  it  can  for  its  own  benefit. 
Some  gain  benefit  by  closed  markets  and  bleeding  a 
monopoly,  others  benefit  by  open  markets,  and  each 
fights  for  what  it  wants  by  trade  methods  backed 
with  force.  The  free  trader  honestly  believes  that  all 
this  can  and  should  be  abolished  by  each  country 
producing  what  it  is   best  fitted   for,   and   a  tacit   or 


96  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

legal  understanding  that  there  is  to  be  no  trade 
rivalry  on  the  various  lines  thus  assigned  to  different 
countries.  Such  would  be  the  only  system  which 
could  abolish  trade  warfare.  Under  such  a  system 
advance  would  be  greatly  checked,  if  not  killed. 
Look  at  the  history  of  quinine ;  only  twenty  years 
ago  it  was  10s.  an  ounce,  and  the  growers  (though 
competing  among  themselves)  did  not  think  they 
could  improve  the  process  or  reduce  the  price.  The 
chemist  in  Europe  stepped  into  the  market  and 
smashed  the  old  system  by  much  cheaper  artificial 
quinine.  But  the  growers,  sooner  than  be  ruined, 
invented  extraction  by  petroleum,  and  brought  down 
the  price  to  is.  6d.  an  ounce.  Now  here  were  two 
acts  of  violent  trade  warfare  between  countries  ;  the 
result  being  such  an  improvement  that  instead  of  one 
of  the  most  life-saving  medicines  being  a  luxury,  it 
can  now  be  used  six  times  more  freely  than  before. 
Without  trade  war  this  would  never  have  come  about. 
Free  trade  implies  free  competition,  and  that  is 
trade-warfare. 

Another  form  of  trade  war  is  holding  a  country 
for  the  sake  of  a  monopoly  of  trade,  thus  enabling  a 
group  of  manufacturers — say  of  France — to  tax  all 
the  inhabitants  under  their  government,  especially  in 
colonies— as  Algiers,  Madagascar,  Tahiti,  &c.  This 
is  simply  a  form  of  tribute,  like  the  taxation  levied 
by  Rome  on  various  conquered  countries  ;  it  holds 
back  the  taxed  countries.  If  other  countries  wish  to 
get  a  share  of  that  trade  they  will  have  to  fight,  by 
trade  or  by  violence,  to  conquer  the  right  to  join  in  it. 
And  a  trade  war  which  shut,  say,  all  English  markets 
to  France,   until    all  French  markets  were  open  to 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  97 

England,  would  not  violate  any  economic  principle. 
It  is  meeting  force  by  force,  exclusion  by  exclusion  ; 
and  no  shudder  at  our  using  trade  war  ourselves  will 
prevent  for  an  instant  the  trade  war  which  is  used 
against  us.  Our  principles  will  not  weigh  a  feather 
in  other  nations'  practice.  But  warfare  is  a  temporary 
measure,  and  retaliation  must  only  be  temporary. 
The  great  danger  would  be  in  establishing  a  perma- 
nent system  of  taxation  of  foreign  productions,  which 
would  be  worked  to  the  utmost  by  trades  unions  at 
home,  in  order  to  enable  them  to  bleed  the  country 
to  death  by  high  prices.  This  terrible  danger  of 
ruin  is  the  main  reason  against  protective  duties, 
though  seldom,  if  ever,  noticed  in  public  discussion 
of  the  subject. 

Another  form  of  warfare  is  the  relative  burden  of 
armaments.  This  may  be  called  slow  combustion,  in 
contrast  to  the  open  flame  of  war.  Now  if  there  is  no 
joint  limitation — as  at  present — the  most  long-sighted 
and  powerful  nation  stands  to  win  at  this  game  ;  the 
result  is  the  same  as  if  actual  war  were  in  progress, 
but  the  terrors  and  destruction  of  war  are  avoided. 
But  if  there  be  a  joint  limitation  of  armament — as 
some  hope  may  be  established — it.  must  be  on  such  a 
basis  that  no  one  state  is  left  in  a  condition  of  clear 
superiority  to  another,  otherwise  it  would  tie  the 
inferior  state  to  be  in  a  permanently  inferior  condition. 
And  the  qualities  which  will  win  will  be  subterfuge, 
evasion,  and  bad  faith  ;  whichever  state  contrives  to 
be  better  prepared  than  another  behind  the  agreement 
will  stand  to  win  when  the  war  does  come.  In  the 
unlimited  condition  the  qualities  win  which  are  those 
best  for  mankind  in  all  other  respects  ;  in  the  limited 

J.  ll 


g8  JANUS    IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

condition  the  qualities  will  win  which  are  worst  for 
mankind  otherwise.  The  real  fact  is  that  great 
armaments  are  like  great  states,  a  needful  condition 
of  the  new  speed  of  communication.  When  it  took 
two  or  three  months  to  move  an  army  from  central 
Europe  to  England,  we  had  two  or  three  months  to 
prepare ;  when  it  takes  only  two  or  three  days  we 
must  be  always  prepared.  No  one  can  put  the  clock 
back,  and  steam  is  the  end  of  small  armaments. 
Within  a  generation  of  quick  transport  being  started, 
big  armaments  were  found  needful,  and  will  never 
cease  to  be  needful.  Great  permanent  combinations 
of  states  are  the  only  line  of  relief  under  the  new 
conditions,  which  bind  mankind  for  ever  in  the 
future. 

Let  us  look  now  at  direct  war.  What  are  the 
qualities  which  tell  for  success,  looking  to  the  wars  of 
recent  times  with  which  we  are  familiar  ?  In  the 
brains  of  the  army  the  main  qualities  have  been  (i) 
Foresight  ;  (2)  Combining  power  ;  (3)  Honesty ; 
(4)  Imagination  ;  (5)  Skill ;  and  in  the  muscle  of  the 
army  (6)  Physique  ;  (7)  Industry ;  (8)  Tenacity.  In 
short,  success  in  war  requires  precisely  the  same 
qualities  as  success  in  peace.  Even  if  the  cause  is 
bad,  yet  it  is  the  best  man  all  round  that  wins.  In 
each  case  recently  the  winner  has  been  the  better 
power  for  future  civilisation.  War  then  may  be 
defined  as  the  concentration  into  a  year  of  the  same 
results  which  would  take  place  by  economic  causes 
within  perhaps  a  generation  or  a  century.  So  far  as 
violent  changes  are  undesirable — as  we  have  noticed 
before — so  far  war  is  undesirable.  But  on  the  purely 
humanitarian  view  it  may  be  better  to  flee  before  one's 


LINES   OF  ADVANCE. 


enemies  for  three  months  than  have  three  year.-.' 
famine  ;  it  may  be  better  to  kill  100,000  in  a  brief 
campaign  than  starve  a  million  during  a  whole 
generation  by  bad  trade  owing  to  slow  economic 
changes.  War  strikes  the  imagination  and  impresses 
the  thoughtless  with  its  horror,  but  a  starving  peace 
may  be  a  far  more  painful  process. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  that  any  of  the  causes  of  trade 
war,  armament  war,  or  open  war  are  at  all  likely  to 
be  less  in  the  future  than  they  have  been  in  the  past  ; 
and  if  the  causes  are  the  same  we  must  expect  like 
effects.  Nor  do  we  see  that  any  result  of  these 
different  kinds  of  war  is  injurious  to  that  character  of 
man  which  is  requisite  for  his  advance  in  better  lines. 
Each  of  these  forms  of  competition  tends  to  give  an 
advantage  to  the  best  qualified  race,  and  to  promote 
the  most  beneficial  strains  of  character.  On  the 
general  principle  that  slow  evolution  is  preferable  to 
violent  changes  we  must  look  for  advance  by  intensi- 
fied trade  war  rather  than  by  armaments,  and  by  the 
strain  of  armament  rather  than  by  open  war. 

A  direction  in  which  great  improvements  of  organisa- 
tion may  be  attained  would  be  in  better  adaptation 
of  checks.  So  far  as  possible,  checks  should  be 
abolished  by  establishing  interests  in  the  same  direc- 
tion between  different  parties.  The  profit-sharing 
movement  is  an  excellent  beginning  of  what  metis  to 
be  fully  and  exactly  carried  out.  The  checks  of 
inspection,  which  have  been  so  greatly  multiplied 
lately,  are  peculiarly  liable  to  abuses  ;  and  a  system 
of  fewer  and  far  superior  inspectors,  much  less  inspec- 
tion, and  much  heavier  penalties  to  correspond,  would 
in  the  long  run  prove  the  safer  line.     The  great  check 

11  j 


ioo  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

by  popular  election  is  very  wasteful,  a  general  election 
costing  the  country  over  a  million  pounds  in  various 
ways.  Precisely  as  fair  a  check  would  be  gained  by 
summoning  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  electors  by  lot  at 
the  day  of  election  ;  and  the  nursing  of  a  constituency 
would  be  much  diminished. 

Lastly,  let  us  look  at  the  final  type  to  which  man 
will  probably  be  led  by  natural  survival.  This 
enquiry  is  limited  throughout  to  those  qualities  which 
are  the  product  of  external  causes  ;  and  no  attempt 
is  made  to  estimate  the  more  spiritual  side  of  man  or 
his  higher  mental  development.  For  that  we  have 
not  the  same  physical  basis  of  research,  and  it  would 
be  a  fruitless  mixture  to  include  such  considerations — 
however  important — in  an  enquiry  which  by  its  scope 
might  be  similarly  applicable  to  lower  organisms. 
We  are  therefore  dealing  here  only  with  the  physical 
basis  of  civilisation. 

For  the  sake  of  safety  from  aggression  and  preven- 
tion of  small  quarrels,  federations  of  great  size  must 
prevail  ;  while  those  federations  which  allow  for  the 
greatest  diversity  between  the  states  will  prove  more 
adaptable  and  vigorous.  Similarly,  states  which 
allow  of  the  greatest  diversity  of  life  to  the  individual 
will  succeed  best,  by  the  promotion  of  the  most 
vigorous  strains.  More  systematic  law  will  be  needed 
between  states.  This  may  perhaps  be  on  the  line  of 
all  contracts  being  on  the  seller's  law,  and  all  marriage 
on  the  husband's  law,  regardless  of  change  of  resi- 
dence ;  and  all  contracts  being  suable  on  their  own 
law  in  any  state. 

The  greatest  empires  have  in  the  past  allowed  great 
diversity  between  states.      Persia  left  each  land  to  its 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  101 

own  laws,  and  only  required  the  control  of  a  satrap,  a 
small  tribute,  and  unification  of  army  and  navy.  Rome 
interfered  very  little  with  local  law,  and  left  the  prin- 
cipal cities  autonomous  throughout  the  empire. 
Britain  has  carefully  preserved  local  law  where  a 
system  existed,  as  in  India,  the  Cape,  and  many 
varieties  nearer  home,  even  in  England  itself.  The 
United  States  have  kept  local  laws  of  states  and  local 
legislatures.  Hence  it  is  likely  that  groups  of  states 
with  great  variety  of  type  will  prevail,  only  unified 
by  a  common  system  of  defence  and  compulsory 
taxation  for  that  purpose.  It  is  even  conceivable  that 
such  a  system  might  be  established  in  England,  if  the 
Privy  Council  was  supplemented  by  Colonial  ex- 
ministers  of  long  standing,  and  was  granted  powers 
of  assessment  over  all  parliaments  for  the  common 
defence. 

The  type  of  man  which  must  prevail  is  that  of  the 
greatest  industry  and  greatest  individuality  ;  each 
man  belonging  to  many  voluntary  societies  for 
various  united  benefits.  Agriculture,  the  main  indus- 
try of  man,  will  be  far  more  elaborate  and  economical; 
as  much  so  as  the  present  Chinese  system,  or  even 
carried  to  further  detail  with  machinery.  And  the 
unlimited  supply  of  atmospheric  nitrates,  now  in 
sight,  will  also  greatly  increase  production.  Profit- 
sharing  or  the  shareholding  of  all  workers  must 
gradually  prevail  in  all  industries.  The  growth  of 
rapidity  of  thought  and  action,  and  the  economy  of 
organisation,  will  enable  a  living  to  be  earned  with 
perhaps  half  a  day's  labour,  or  less.  The  large- 
balance  of  time,  beyond  that  which  will  be  needed  for 
bare   necessities,  will    be    spent    on    a    much    greater 


102  JANUS   IN    MODERN    LIFE. 

development  of  natural  resources  and  conveniences  of 
life;  each  man  will  thus  enjoy  the  result  of  an 
immense  accumulated  capital  of  improvements  and 
benefits.  In  short,  each  one  will  be  rich,  either  by 
the  cheapness  of  articles  or  abundance  of  money,  a 
merely  relative  question.  The  accumulated  wealth 
of  improvement  will  leave  a  smaller  profit  on  labour, 
or  in  other  words  capital  will  command  a  very  low 
interest.  Therefore  there  will  be  less  inducement  to 
work  for  saving ;  and  hence  spare  time  will  be  more 
readily  employed  in  the  personal  quest  of  knowledge, 
and  enlargement  of  mental  interests,  in  literature,  in 
science,  in  history,  and  in  the  arts,  or  among  the  less 
capable  in  mere  amusements.  But  the  higher  the 
social  organisation  and  reward  of  ability,  the  more 
intense  will  be  the  weeding  of  the  less  capable,  and 
the  more  highly  sustained  will  be  the  general  level  of 
ability. 

That  fluctuation  will  occur  is  inevitable ;  but  it  will 
be  gradually  understood  that  the  utmost  freedom  of 
labour  and  communication  is  the  only  way  to  allow 
changes  to  be  gradual,  and  so  to  avert  the  great  and 
disgraceful  catastrophes  of  forcible  migration  of 
hordes.  Hence  there  will  tend  to  be  an  incessant 
flow  of  labour  from  country  to  country,  assisted  by 
international  labour  bureaus  :  thus  the  wage  of  any 
given  ability  will  be  equalised  over  the  world,  and 
hence  prices  of  all  produce  will  equalise  also.  The 
whole  of  this  action  will  further  enforce  the  power 
of  ability,  and  tend  to  end  or  mend  the  less  capable. 

We  must,  then,  look  for  a  world  with  approximately 
equal  civilisation  and  prices  in  all  lands  ;  but  with 
each  people  developed  in  their  own  lines  of  ability,  in 


LINES   OF   ADVANCE.  103 

accord  with  climate  and  conditions,  to  such  a  point 
that  no  other  people  can  compete  with  them  in  their 
own  conditions.  The  equatorial  races  tending  to 
have  less  initiative  and  vigour  than  those  of  colder 
climates,  the  equatorial  lands  will  therefore  tend  to 
be  each  attached  to  a  temperate  land  which  will 
supply  more  energy  to  their  development  ;  while  a 
steady  drift  of  population  from  colder  to  hotter  lands 
will  take  place,  as  for  a  generation  or  two  they  will 
retain  a  greater  vigour.  Thus  the  tropics  will  be  the 
seat  of  the  keenest  competition  and  extinction  of 
races ;  while  the  borders  of  the  arctic  regions  will 
always  afford  most  room  for  human  increase. 

So  far  as  peoples  turn  their  backs  on  the  inevitable 
goal,  they  will  have  to  painfully  retrace  their  course, 
or  else  disappear  by  extinction ;  while  the  peoples 
who  move  toward  the  lines  of  success  will  be  the 
fathers  of  the  future.  Will  they  be  found  in  East  or 
West? 


INDEX. 


A. 

Ability,  inherited,  4 

sporadic,  not  inherited,  5 
driven  out,  3,  4,  8,  21 
favoured  by  war,  98 

Administration  depends  on  character,  1 

Advance  checked  by  communism,  20,  21 
checked  by  education,  73-75 
due  to  individual,  78,  80 
gained  by  saving  waste,  79 

Agriculture,  elaboration  of,  101 

to  be  saved  from  townsmen,  54 

Amusement,  passion  for,  20,  82,  83 

Anarchism,  product  of  great  states,  67 

Armaments,  big,  needful,  98 
war  by,  97 

Artificial  conditions  encourage  variation,  5 

Athletics,  needed  by  the  unfit,  82 

Atrophy  of  mind,  7-9 

Aurelian,  36 

Automatic  lives  of  majority,  79 

B. 

Barbaric  society,  complex,  21 
Bartholomew's  Day,  1662,  41 
Benevolence,  scope  of,  v. 
Betting,  19 

Birth  rate,  waste  of  high,  85 
Bricklayers'  Union,  influence  of,  31 
Building,  dear  in  England,  31 
Bye-laws,  value  of,  44 

C. 

Capacity,  see  Ability. 
Capital  used  for  income,  47 
Capitalists,  result  of  diminishing,  50 


106  INDEX. 

Catastrophes  produced  by  small  causes,  42 
Cattle,  competition  among,  25 
Change,  gradual,  to  be  allowed,  43 
effect  of,  13,  63 
violent,  injurious,  41 
Character,  the  basis  of  society,  1 
production  of,  2 
subject  to  natural  law,  2 
low  type  at  present,  15-19 
killed  by  municipalising,  26 
grown  by  experience,  74 
Checks,  better  use  of,  99 
Children,  later  more  able,  86 

maintenance  of,  8,  60,  86-88 
Chinese  labour,  need  for,  93-95 
Civil  war,  results  of,  39-41 
Civilisation  a  means  of  diversity,  68 
Clubs,  benefit  of,  92 
Collections,  dispersal  of,  46 
Colonising  result  of  primogeniture,  45,  46 
Combinations,  must  be  voluntary,  91 
Combined  labour,  wasteful,  90 
Committees,  mind  of,  9 
Commons  rule  alone,  39-41 

weakness  of,  43 
Communal  organisation  of  early  Europe,  22 
Communication,  results  of,  56,  66,  98 
Communism  a  bar  to  useful  variation,  20,  21 
and  early  Christianity,  24 
and  fatalism,  25,  26 
and  labour,  90 
Compensation  for  accidents,  58 
Competition,  necessity  of,  3,  10 
dislike  of,  10 
among  cattle,  25 
Continuity  of  work,  power  of,  80,  81 
Co-operation  a  main  line  of  advance,  92 
Cox,  Mr.  Harold,  55 
Crimes,  survivals  of  early  life,  73 
Criminals  to  be  sorted  into  communities,  73 
Cromwell  an  arbitrary  ruler,  40 

value  of,  in  anarchy,  40,  41 


D. 

Death  duties,  effect  of,  44,  46 
Despotism,  a  refuge  from  anarchy,  41 
Devolution  of  the  Roman  Empire,  36 


INDEX.  107 


Diocletian,  decree  of  prices,  37,  38 
Disciples,  early,  hard-weeded,  24 
Diseases  of  bodies  politic,  vi.,  19 
Diversity,  need  of,  65-77.  100 

of  moral  standards,  67,  68 
of  types  required,  69 
dangerous  form  of.  70 
still  existing.  71-3 
of  marriage  laws,  71,  72 
Dulness  of  observation,  16,  17 


Education  a  bar  to  advance,  73-76 
experiments  needed.  75 
variety  of,  needed,  75,  76 

Elections,  waste  by,  100 

Emigration  beneficial,  13 

harmful,  13,  14 

Environment  subject  to  man,  3 

Equatorial  races,  future  of,  103 

Escape  of  the  capable,  8 

Extremes  of  condition  appear  together.  5 


Factions  of  the  Civil  War,  39,  40 

Farm  colonies,  8 

Fatalism  and  communism.  26 

Federations  must  prevail,  100 

Five-mile  Act,  40 

France,  ability  drained  from.  4 

cost  of  Revolution  in,  41 
Free-trade  only  possible  with  bounties,  52 
Free-will  a  subject  of  normal  variation.  2 

G. 

Gallienus,  35 

German  immigration,  15 

Government  cannot  tax  its  own  payments,  49 

Gracchus,  cheap  corn  of.  29 

Gradual  changes  to  be  allowed.  43 


H. 


Happiness  based  on  character.  2 
Health,  saving  of,  79,  -o 


io8  INDEX. 


Housing  problem,  cause  of,  31 
Huguenots  closely  weeded,  24 
expulsion  of,  4 


Illustrated  papers,  18 
Immigration,  14,  15 
Income  tax,  effect  on  trade,  47-49 
Individual  thought  essential,  9 
Individualism  a  line  of  advance,  91 
Infant  life,  saving  of,  60 
Inspection,  abuse  of,  99 
Intellect,  limitations  of,  17 
Intolerance  of  Puritans,  39-41,  70 

gain  and  loss  of,  66 
Investments,  foreign,  demand  for,  48 
Ireland,  emigration  injuring,  14 

land-holding  in,  53 
Italian  labour  abroad,  93 


I- 


Janus,  the  peace  bringer,  vii. 
Japanese  too  industrious,  93 


Labour,  combined,  wasteful,  90 

in  the  tropics,  56 
Land  in  Ireland,  53 

state  ownership  of,  53-55 

equal  values  of,  56 
Laws  impartial  to  all  residents,  94 
Life,  infant,  saving  of,  60 
Life-duties,  effect  of,  49 
Lighting  system  faulty,  17 
Little-Italy  party,  35-37 
Loans,  risks  of,  55 
Local  administration,  variety  in,  44 
London  County  Council,  17,  55 
Low  races  pass  under  higher,  1 

M. 

Malignants  deprived,  41 

Man  subjugates  environment,  3 

permanence  of  type  of,  10-12 

final  type  of,  100-102 


INDEX.  109 


Marriage  ceremony,  period  of,  72 
laws,  diversity  of,  71,  72 
temporary,  84 
Medical  examination  of  children,  87 
Mencius  quoted,  7 

Mental  changes  similar  to  physical,  2-7 
qualities  inherited,  4 
growth  encouraged  by  use,  G 
growth  to  old  age,  6 
Merovings,  degradation  of,  7 
Middle-class  waste,  61 
Mind  subject  to  natural  variation,  2-7 
variability  induced,  6 
arrested  at  various  ages,  6 
atrophy  of,  7-9 
unchanged  in  nature,  n-12 
Monopolies,  9,  96 

Moral  standard  typical  of  a  society,  68 
Morality,  relative  standard  of,  67-68 
Municipalising  enterprises,  26 


N. 


Nationalisation  of  land,  53-55 
Nationalities,  use  of  various,  93 
New  Testament  teaching,  23,  24 
Norse  poor  law,  22,  86 


O. 


Officialism,  9 

Old  age  pensions,  59 

Oman,  Prof.,  29 


Pasts  have  all  been  present,  vii. 
Patriotism  killed  by  separate  groups,  71 
Permanence  of  type  of  man,  10-12 
Peters,  Carl,  opinion  of,  20 
Physical  changes  similar  to  mental,  2-7 
Pleasures,  low  type  of,  17-19 
Polybius  on  history,  iv. 
Poverty  results  from  opportunity,  5 
Prayer,  Book  of  Common,  proscribed,  40 
Present  time,  apparent  importance  of,  vii. 
Prices,  consequence  of  regulating,  37,  38 
Primogeniture  diminished,  45 
effect  of,  45.  46 
Private  enterprise  most  effective,  9 
Prodigal  son,  his  rights,  24 


no  INDEX. 

Profits  to  be  earned  from  wealth,  30-32 
Profit-sharing,  92,  99 
Proletariat,  support  of,  30-32 
Property  parted  in  life,  44,  49 
Proscriptions,  disastrous  effect  of,  4 
Provinces  parted  from  Rome,  36 

R. 

Radicalism  contrary  to  evolution,  42 
Railway  stations,  faulty,  16 
Railways,  effects  of,  56,  66 
Rapidity,  gain  by,  81 
Reasoning  interest  obliterated,  74 
Regulation  pattern  men,  74 
Relatives,  responsibility  of,  22,  89 
Remedy  for  the  incapable,  8 
Renewal  of  population,  83 
Rentoul,  Dr.,  87 
Responsibility  without  rule,  86 
Retaliation  in  trade  war,  97 
Retrograde  characters  ruined  by  help.  7 
Ruling  faculty  of  man,  3 


Scrapping  of  machines  and  men,  85 

Seebohm,  Dr.,  22 

Selection  the  means  of  elevation,  3,  20 

repressed  by  communism,  20-27 
Slavery  not  fatal  to  Rome,  34 
Sloth  a  deadly  sin,  16 

now  compulsory,  16 
Socialism,  use  of  word,  23 
Society,  barbaric  complexity,  21 

a  mixture  of  stages,  72 

final  type  of,  100-103 
Sport,  18,  19 

States,  large,  a  result  of  speed,  66 
Submerged  tenth,  6,  14,  69,  88 
Survivals  of  earlier  stages,  72,  73 


Taxation  in  death  duties,  44-46 
on  capital,  47 
on  trade,  47-50 
in  life  duties,  49 
immoral,  50,  51 
should  be  felt,  52 
limitations  of,  92 


INDEX.  m 


Taxation  of  extravagance,  52 

Tenth,  submerged,  6,  14,  69 

Theolo.^ic  morality,  68 

Thought,  lack  of,  at  present,  16 

Town,  type  of.  57 

Townsman  favoured,  28 

Trade  unionism  and  sloth,  16,  81 
in  Rome,  29-34 
compulsory,  30-34 
and  the  poor,  30,  31 
assessment  of  tax.  32 

Transit,  rapid,  result  of,  56-58 

Trust-man  class,  62 

Trusts,  creation  of,  49 

U. 

Unfit,  treatment  of,  87-19 
Uniformity,  evils  of,  65,  67 
Unintellectual  character,  source  of,  74 
Utilitarian  morality,  67 


Variability  induced,  6 

Variation  produced  by  artificial  conditions,  5 

needed  for  advance,  65,  69 

about  one  centre,  70 
Vice  not  fatal  to  Rome,  34 
Violent  changes  injurious,  39-41 

W. 
Wages,  equality  of,  8 
Waltzing  quoted.  34 
War  by  trade,  95 

by  armaments,  97 
by  violence,  98 
favours  best  stocks,  98 
causes,  permanent,  99 
Waste,  taxation  of,  52 

the  bar  to  advance,  79 
Wealth  held  by  different  classes,  60 
White  labour  dreads  competition,  94,  95 
Work,  distaste  for,  20,  81 
power  of,  80,  81 

to  be  adapted  to  the  person,  Si,  82 
Workmen,  atrophy  among,  8 
Workmen's  Compensation  Act,  58 


BRADBURY,    AGNEW,    &   CO.  LD.,   PRINTERS,  LONDON   AND   TONBRIDOE. 


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